Posted on: Wed 01-07-2020

People seeking medicare living within Ughelli and environs have aban­doned the state govern­ment-owned Mariere Me­morial Hospital Ughelli, Delta State, over fear of contracting the dreaded Covid-19 virus in its prem­ises or being tagged as pa­tients of the virus when visited.

Daily Independent gath­ered that the situation got worse when news filtered around town that, four doctors working in Mari­ere Memorial Hospital have contracted the virus and were asked to go for self-isolation for 14 days.

Also, there is that fear among residents that common fever ailment or patients with cough could be labelled as a suspected Covid-19 patient. This development has made sick patients to re­sort to self medication.

Our reporter also gath­ered that the shutting down of some of the major wards in the government hospital due to lack of medical ex­perts to take care of the pa­tients on admission further sent wrong signal among the Ughelli North Local Government residents that the hospital was complete­ly shutdown.

A medical doctor, who plead anonymity spoke with Daily Independent, said the hospital gate is wide open and it still runs 24 hours operations.

However, he acknowl­edged that there was gross reduction in turnout of out-patients to the hospital, saying the hospital treats every patient as they come. He enjoined residents seeking medical care to visit the hospital as the it provides specialised care for its patients.

Source: Dailyindependent

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