The National Orthopaedic Hospital (NOHIL), Igbobi, Lagos, has appealed to the public to donate equipment and other items to aid patient care and other services. Mrs Obiageli Oguariri, Deputy Director, Nursing, Clinical Education Information, Technical and Research (CERIT), NOHIL, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
She spoke to NAN on the sidelines of the presentation of some equipment to the NOHIL by Nigeria-U.K.-based charity organisation, the Naijaid UK, in collaboration with the Lead Nurse Africa International Foundation.
The items worth millions of Naira included bed steads, lockers for patients, food trolleys, chairs, hospital beds and pressure relieving mattresses, catheter and boots for rehabilitation.
Also, medical books from the Medical Department of Oxford University were donated to the health institution. Oguariri, represented the Head of Department, Mrs Veronica Olagundoye.
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“We still need more things such as the bed sheets, patients gowns and the consumables because the international standard of protection has come to stay worldwide.
“So, whether a patient is lowly or rich, known or unknown, we treat everybody equally and with care here. Looking at our patients, when you get to the ward, the few of them that move about and they are not in any form of cast or the other, they are supposed to be in what we call patient gown, we don’t have them.
Some of them walk in the corridor and we won’t be able to identify them; we also need bed sheets so that we can always change them,” Oguariri said.
Most of our patients, because of the therapeutic arrangements that confine them to the bed, the primary diagnosis that brings them here make them to stay much longer in bed and they sweat.
So, you need to change those beds more often; if you do that you help their skin and you prevent them from bed sore.”
For the staff, patients need 100 per cent care because patient handling is by manpower and by using some of the materials, you have technically removed 90 per cent of weight bearing from the nurses.
“Some of these weight bearing from patient care services can result to constant back pain and low back pain, which may sometimes degenerate to chronic situation.
So, having some of these materials that ease healthcare service delivery and patient care will make our work more effective and efficient.
Again, we need help in the consumables. These patients, sometimes, complain about buying these consumables.
For example you have one patient with various procedures; the different staff will use gloves on a patient and one packet of gloves is just containing fifty pairs; by the time you know it, a packet of gloves is finished within a day,” Oguariri told NAN.
“The patients don’t understand all these, they will say we make them to pay extra; but standard procedure requires you remove it, wash your hands and then use another again, especially when attending to different patients.
However, if they know, they will cooperate better and if we get them donations from philanthropists and organisations, it goes a long way to relieve them and it makes our work easier, faster and joyful.’’
Mrs Lanre Nehan-Babalola, the Founding Trustee/Executive Director, Naijaid UK, said the gesture to donate was part of the organisation’s contributions toward improving the wellbeing of Nigerians and making the works of nurses easier.
“There are lots of things that can be done in the health sector and I know our leaders know them because they are well travelled and they see the standard practices obtainable.
So, what we need is the will power and the right governance which is not also only about the government.
It is the whole system that needs to change and we as a people, we need to understand that for anything to be done correctly, we all have to be ready to chip in our quota,’’ she said.
Mrs Philomena Osomonika, Chairman, National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives (NANNM), NOHI, said the healthcare system needed more donations.
She also called for more enlightenment on the kind of care given at Orthopedic Hospitals as a typical African man preferred to go for bone setters when they have bone injuries.
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“So, we try to create awareness that those who have injuries to their bone, instead of going to the bone setters, they should come here before any step is taken.’’
She urged philanthropists and organisations to donate items because “we have some patients who are not ill, but kind of traumatised because of their immobility.
They need some of these aids like the ankle brace and knee brace to allow them mobilise again,’’ she said.
Also, Mrs Julie Mogbo, Family Health Director of Lead Nurse Africa International Foundation, said: “NaijAid UK is partnering Lead Nurse Africa to empower nurses by ensuring that services delivered to patients are of good quality.
“We hope donations like this will continue to come and that the doctors and nurses will put them to effective use,’’ Mogbo said. (NAN)