State lawmakers in Anambra have bemoaned the ugly state of some government-owned health institutions in the state.

Speaking Thursday at the first plenary session of the new assembly in Awka the member representing Njikoka 1 constituency, Dr. Timothy Ifedioramma, decried the deplorable state of Enugwu-Ukwu General Hospital in Njikoka Local Government Area of the state.

He revealed that snakes chased doctors and nurses on duty while attending to patients as other medical staff scampered for safety saying that the over grown bushes around the hospital may not be far from the reason snakes have invaded the hospital which serves both the community and neighbouring communities health needs.

Ifedioramma said: “The government has really abandoned that hospital. Each time I confront the commissioner, they would say they want to upgrade it to a general hospital.

“But we can’t wait until it is upgraded because the way it is now, nothing works there. No lab and the mortuary got burnt in December last year; all of that is as a result of negligence and abandonment by government.

“Rural women don’t have places to be delivered of their babies. Private hospitals are charging a whole lot and government hospitals are non-existent.

“I want to get some of them into health insurance but at the same time, how can somebody who is sick in the village go to Awka or Onitsha to access medical care, when we have a very big structure like Enugwu-Ukwu general hospital.”

News Express reports that the hospital mortuary was in December 2019 razed down by a mysterious fire, burning and defacing over eighty corpses left there by relatives.

While saying that State Government may be oblivious of the state of the hospital, the lawmaker emphasised the need for government to look into the issue with view to equipping it so that people community and its environs can access the health facility.

He added: “As big as the hospital is, only two doctors operate there. One will do day, the other will do night. There are no offices. The doctors sleep in their cars at night.

“I almost wept when I went there on oversight duty and saw patients sitting on the floor. It is not good.”

On his part, the lawmaker representing Nnewi-South 11 constituency, Hon. Johnbosco Obi, called on the Commissioner for Health to as a matter of urgent public importance respond to the poor state of Ukpor general hospital in Nnewi-South council area.

He regretted that though the hospital was built by Ukpor people and handed over to the Anambra State Government, the hospital has been abandoned.

According to Obi, a pregnant woman being attended to by nurses at night was abandoned by the nurses, leaving the pregnant woman to her fate in the dead of the night.

He said that it took the intervention of the community vigilante operatives who ran to her rescue when they heard her crying for help to save her.

Obi appealed to the new commissioner for health to come to the aid of Ukpor community and entire Nnewi-South 11 state constituency by refurbishing the hospital to save them from avoidable deaths.

Hon. Obinna Chris Emeneka representing Anambra East constituency also urged the commissioner for health to look into the pressing needs of the primary health care facility situated in Igbariam community.

He observed that the primary health care centre Igbariam has become a ghost of itself saying that apart from the licking roof, it is no longer accessible or habitable.

“Health is one of the enablers of the present administration in Anambra State and as such there is an urgent need for government to improve on the health indicators of the state through refurbishments of health facilities to enable my constituents and the entire citizenry access quality health care delivery in the state,” Emeneka stated.

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