Ikeja General Hospital Stinks

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Part of Ikeja General Hospital now stinks as the soakaway pits behind the Paediatrics Ward now overflow.

The three soakaway pits are now overflowing with human faeces into other areas thus creating environmental challenges for both workers and patients of the hospital.

P.M.NEWS can further report that the mortuary area of the hospital also stinks as the water and other liquid substances used for  washing corpses flows into open gutters around the mortuary area.

“It has been like this for years and the management has refused to understand that this is a looming epidemic. Just as it is an eyesore to some of us, it also has psychological effect on individuals,” one of the staff of the hospital told P.M.NEWS.

A visit to the Paediatric Ward where the three soakaway pits are located revealed the poor handling of human waste from the building.

Human faeces and waste water  flow freely even when the hospital engineer, who gave his name simply as Mr. Ola, said they had fixed the place twice within the last three weeks.

The faeces flow across the road leading to the children immunisation centre, a building where births and deaths are also recorded.

Staff of the hospital, who work around the place, said it had been like that for months now and that they have made several complaints to the management.

They accused the management of looking the other way while the staff are faced with the danger of falling ill.

One of the soakaway pits left open overflows with excreta.

A staff, who pleaded not to be named, said: “this is what we have been facing in this place and we have constantly brought the attention of the management to our plight.”

Sometimes, the place stinks to the extent that staff abandon their offices.

When P.M.NEWS contacted the acting Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Dr. Bode Ogunbanjo, he confirmed that the issue had been brought to his notice and that he issued a directive to the engineer to clear it,  adding that he even approved money for the purpose.

He also contacted the engineer, who confirmed that he was actually given the directive and that he had cleared the place twice in the last three weeks.

The engineer, Mr. Ola, however, complained about a leaking pipe which caused the problem and that his men had just located the source of the problem.

“Three weeks ago, I made sure that the soakaway pits were cleared. I can also tell you that two of the pits are filled with clean water coming from the pipes.

“We have been able to locate the problem and we are trying to clear it again tonight,” he said Thursday,  adding that the hospital will construct another soakaway pit and abandon one of the three existing ones.

He also lamented that the patients were not helping the efforts of the hospital.

“Some of these women here put their pads and children’s pampers into the toilet and flush them and in some cases, these block the pipes and result in such problems we are facing now.

“They use the toilets the way they like, doing things they would hardly do in their homes,” Mr. Ola said, while promising that the hospital would fix the problem as soon as possible.

—EROMOSELE EBHOMELE

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