… Families Recount Tragic Emergency Delays, Hospital Rejections
… Doctors Push 24-Hour Primary Centres To Ease Pressure On Tertiary Care
… Overcrowded Tertiary Hospitals Blame PHC Breakdown
… Nigerians Bypass PHCs, Jam Teaching Hospitals
Daud Olatunji & NAN
A fresh alarm has been raised over Nigeria’s collapsing primary healthcare system as patients and medical experts blame the failure of Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) for rising deaths, emergency delays and bed-space crises in tertiary hospitals across the country.
The worsening situation, they said, is forcing Nigerians to bypass community health facilities and flood overstretched teaching hospitals — many of which now routinely turn patients away due to lack of space.
Health experts and victims told the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos on Sunday that the failure of PHCs to function effectively remains a major driver of preventable deaths and the persistent “no bed space” nightmare in larger hospitals nationwide.
Livinus Abonyi, Dean, Faculty of Healthcare Services at the Federal University of Allied Health Sciences, Enugu, said poorly funded and under-staffed PHCs have turned tertiary hospitals into emergency centres for conditions that should be handled at community level.
He lamented that many PHCs lack equipment and manpower and do not operate round-the-clock, forcing patients to rush to tertiary hospitals where bed spaces are increasingly unavailable.
“Presently, a patient can visit about two to three tertiary hospitals without getting a bed space — that is real,” Abonyi said. “There are many citizens who are carried back home dead because they are unable to get a bed space.”
According to him, only about 30 per cent of cases should ordinarily be referred to teaching hospitals if PHCs were functional.
“Earlier intervention prevents disease progression. But when PHCs fail, the burden shifts and people die before help comes,” he warned.
A tragedy too painful to forget
For Donatus George, a schoolteacher, the consequences were personal — and devastating. He narrated how his wife died after being transferred between hospitals due to lack of bed space and inadequate personnel.
“The circumstances that surrounded the death of my wife are unforgettable,” he said, calling for urgent strengthening of Nigeria’s emergency healthcare system to prevent avoidable loss of lives.
Mentality problem — Doctor
General physician, Dr Gerald Chinasa, blamed public distrust in PHCs and belief that only tertiary hospitals offer quality care.
“An old established norm takes time to change,” he said. “If PHCs are efficient and properly equipped, Nigerians will patronize them and teaching hospitals will breathe.”
He urged government to prioritise manpower, equipment and public enlightenment campaigns to rebuild trust.
Teaching hospitals overwhelmed — LUTH CMD
Chief Medical Director, Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Prof. Wasiu Adeyemo, said tertiary hospitals are overstretched and cannot handle the influx of patients who should first be treated at primary or secondary levels.
“It is not every case that should come to a tertiary hospital,” he stressed. “Unfortunately, most cases are dumped here without prior notification. In such situations, what do you do when all beds are occupied?”
Adeyemo called for establishment of more hospitals and full rehabilitation of secondary and primary health facilities across states.
Health advocates warn that unless Nigeria urgently strengthens primary healthcare delivery and introduces 24-hour service at PHCs, more families will continue to lose loved ones in emergency situations where every minute counts.
As one expert put it: “People are not dying because their sickness cannot be treated — they are dying because the first hospital failed them, and the next one had no bed.”
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