Odili, Others Decry Shortage of Manpower in Medical Intensive Care Units
Blessing Ibunge in Port Harcourt
A former Rivers State governor, Dr. Peter Odili, and other doctors have decried the shortage of manpower in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of medical centres.
The doctors, who spoke at the eighth scientific conference and annual meeting of the Intensive and Critical Care Society of Nigeria (I-CCSN), held in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, pleaded with the federal government to treat as important the challenges of the medical intensive care section, especially by ensuring that there is provision for it in the budget.
Odili, who was the chairman of the conference with the theme: ‘Manpower Development and Training in Critical Care: Building the Gaps’, stated that if the government gives serious attention to intensive care, it would attract success to patients’ care.
Odili said: “This is a very important aspect of Medicare. Society should be supportive. Intensive care – critical care is the ultimate.
“If you have it right there, you have a success rate in patients’ care, otherwise, patients will suffer. So, everything should be done to support the group”, he added.
On his part, a Professor at the University of Ibadan and the President of the society, Prof. Babatunde Osinaike, harped on the need for the training of manpower, especially doctors and nurses in the healthcare intensive unit.
Osinaike explained that “Intensive Care is a branch of medicine where patients with life-threatening illnesses are catered for. As such, you need to have well-trained manpower – doctors, nurses, and other healthcare to be able to provide care for these groups of patients”.
“Unfortunately, in Nigeria for now, we don’t have enough manpower, the workforce was quite challenged; those providing care in the ICU need to be better trained in intensive care management,” he added.
The I-CCSN president expressed the belief that “with this conference, we have been able to expose some of our doctors to things to know so that they can get better trained as intensive care physicians.
“The other issue we are facing is equipment in the ICU. Most of the facilities that are required for better healthcare are not really there and when they are there the support in terms of servicing some of those machines is not adequate.
“Another area is the issue of remuneration. It is quite intensive and as such people expect it to be well remunerated. But unfortunately, people don’t have that support and so they leave the country to where they can be better remunerated. We have to find a way to stop that brain drain so that we can retain even the few people in intensive care that are going away from the country,” he explained.
Speaking on the federal government’s commitment to the medical unit, Osinaike stressed: “Reason, why we have chosen that theme of manpower development, is because we need to bridge these gaps that are affecting us. So, the government should know that intensive care is important and they should make provisions for it in the budget.
“Also, physicians, doctors should be trained in this area of care and if possible, doctors working in the intensive care should be remunerated especially, so that it will encourage them to stay in Nigeria and not just leave”, he added.
In his submission, the keynote speaker, and Medical Care and Vascular Analyst, Dr. Benjamin Anyanwu, identified indiscipline as one of the challenges facing the medical care system.
“The other big problem revolves around having the right personnel. As you know this whole ‘Japas’ syndrome is taking away workman power, and workforce away from Nigeria. So, you don’t even have enough people to train even if you know about it.
“Again, you barely see training centres and those of us who have founded this association did it to encourage other people to know about medical care, be able to train personnel, and provide medical care services in Nigeria,” Anyanwu explained.
