The General Hospital, Aboh, Mbaise is presently a shadow of itself. The foremost government-owned health facility in the old Mbaise Division (now in Aboh-Mbaise Local Government of Imo State) is desolate, abandoned and deserted courtesy of Governor Rochas Okorocha-led government of Imo State.
Hardly will a first-time visitor to the hospital, recognise that it is a health facility as almost all the
indices for such a status are no longer in existence. The usual traffic of out-patients into the hospital in the morning hours has seized; the wards are empty because what remains of the facility does not inspire the confidence of would-be patients to seek medical attention there.
A visit by beats-onit.com revealed that activities associated with known health delivery services have appallingly plummeted to the extent that full fledged nurses are not seen in the vicinity, nor are there medical doctors engaged in the traditional ward-rounds associated with health institutions of its old caliber.
However, student nurses under attachment could be seen in the mornings spotting jump-shorts, towels wrapped around their bosoms and lazing about. Asked if any activities are going on in the institution, one of the student nurses responded in the affirmative, saying that normal practices as regards their mission to the hospital as students were satisfactory.
Contrary to her response, an administrative staff attached to the School of Midwifery, a section of the hospital, speaking on the condition of anonymity, revealed that the General Hospital Aboh Mbaise had since the coming of Owele Rochas Okorocha as the governor of Imo State, gone moribund.
According to the respondent, both the entire staff and the hospital had never had it so bad since Okorocha’s regime, pointing out that the School of Midwifery had not experienced in-take of students in the last six years nor has it been officially closed; that it just exists in the records without any functional training and learning going on.
The bitterest pill for the staff of the institution, beats-onit.com gathered, was irregular payment of salaries. According to another respondent who confided that they were praying to remain alive to witness the exit of Governor Rochas Okorocha, salaries come once in three to six months.
The over-grown lawns and bushes within the facility speak volumes about the neglect that the hospital has been subjected to. The former hostel blocks of the School of Midwifery earlier pulled down and left to be covered by bush, were seen being cleared by some labourers. The purpose, beata-onit.com.ng learnt, was that there was a directive that the hostels should be rebuilt.
Every effort to reach the Medical Director of the hospital proved abortive as various levels of staff of the institution are in irregular attendance.
Given the present appalling state of decay the General Hospital Aboh Mbaise has reached, and the continuing neglect by the Imo State Government under Governor Rochas Okorocha, its return to its former pride of place in the health-care delivery sphere may be a long road to walk.
