By Egufe Yafugborhi & Chioma Onuegbu

AKWA Ibom State House of Assembly will in the coming days commence a tour of the state hospitals and sundry health institutions to investigate widespread complaints of negligence of duty among health workers as well as failed amenities in the state hospitals.

Member representing Ibiono Ibom Constituency and Chairman House Committee on Health, Moses Essien, disclosed this Tuesday during interaction with the Uyo Correspondents Chapel of the Nigerian Union of Journalists who hosted him.

Sharing a personal experience, Chairman of the Uyo Correspondent Chapel, Bassey Anthony, had confronted the lawmaker on how the 8th Akwa Ibom State Assembly is responding to check the growing complaints over failing infrastructures and sloppy services in the state hospitals.

Anthony narrated, “My Dad was very sick and spent time at the Emmanuel General Hospital in Eket. I noticed doctors are not always on duty. Most times patients wait on ends for doctors. And most times they don’t even come and patients continue to languish in pains in the conditions they have found selves.

“Also the environment of most of the General Hospitals, from my experience at Emmanuel General Hospitals, are very unkempt, grasses overgrown everywhere, prompting mosquito attacks. Patients come with mild ailments and contact more critical health challenges because of the very dirty environment.

“You also have the misfortune of no power supply. Most times patients light candles and phone touches to light their beds and take care of selves in the night. There have cases of poor power supply disrupting medical procedures and threatening patients lives in the public hospitals.”

Responding, the House Health Committee boss said, “You (Anthony) just preempted our (Assembly Health Committee) plan for the House. We are meeting tomorrow and one of the missions we want to embark on is visit to General Hospitals in the state.

“We are not even giving prior notice to them that we are coming so that we get first hand information on what is happening against the public complaints. Like the issue you raised, a medical doctor is supposed to be on duty post to care for patients. He is not supposed to be in his house, keeping patients waiting.

“Sometimes they wait till emergencies before they will come. That is not encouraging. And so we will embark on oversights to most of these hospitals on these issues so that we can draw attention of the Governor (Umo Eno) to most of these challenges people are complaining about.

“We are already dealing with some that came to the House by way of motion. Like the Okorette General Hospital where we dealt with issues raised by member representing Ikot Abasi/Eastern Obolo Constituency.

“We summoned the Commissioner for Health, Permanent Secretary of the Health Ministry. We summoned the Hospital Management Board to appear before the House Committee on Health. We gave them three days matching orders to go to the hospital and report back.

“Truly, those issues raised in the motion were real. They had a fact finding and now those challenges have been fixed, just because of the visit of the Commissioner. We are alive to the duty of drawing attention of the Executive to those areas for reforms and resolutions.”

Meanwhile, through a motion adopted by the House’s Health Committee, Governor Umo Eno yesterday inaugurated the Board for Akwa Ibom Health Insurance Scheme, signalling activation of a law that has been idle since its passage and accent in 2022.