Nobody prays for disasters, but they do happen. Though the government has, for the umpteenth time, assured that its hospitals are ready to deal with such emergencies, many stakeholders tend to disagree. Particularly for those challenging the government position, the bombing at Nyanya on the outskirts of Abuja, in which about 89 persons lost their lives and property worth millions of naira were destroyed on Monday14 April, has further exposed the country’s poor preparation for emergencies. For instance, critics note that the immediate call by the authorities of the Asokoro General Hospital, Abuja, to the citizens to donate blood for the victims of the disaster, points to the fact that all is still not well for emergencies in the land. According to some stakeholders who spoke to our correspondent, the hurried and desperate call by the hospital authorities reveals that the number of injured victims brought to the hospital overwhelmed them. Besides, others argue that medical emergency and rescue operations offered at the site of the bombing were not desirable. A United Kingdom-trained trauma care nurse, Dorothy Robutti, who visited the scene moments after the bombing, says the rescue teams at the site focused more on evacuating the dead than rescuing the living. She notes, “There is an international protocol for evacuation when such disasters happen, and that is, you rescue the living before you start looking for bodies. What I observed was that the rescue teams were more concerned about the casualties than the injured. “Overseas, when such a thing happens, a medical help desk is set up at the site immediately so that doctors and other health care professionals that want to help can go there, get identity tags and start assisting. I did not see that. “On Monday, government protocol officers did not allow some of us to assist the victims. In fact, the situation was so confusing. “The bodies and the victims were being evacuated to hospitals, whereas if medical personnel were on ground, many of the victims could have been treated on site to quickly save their lives. There were many people we could have helped but we could not because of protocol and confusion.”According to her, many routes leading to the site were closed as part of efforts to tighten security around President Goodluck Jonathan, who visited the site.This development, she says, affected the rescue operations. She adds, “The roads were closed and that was a problem, because there was no way to move the victims. It was just one route leading in and out of the site. There should have been various routes. How do you take victims with head injuries out of site of the blast? Even if the president was coming, they should have opened another route for him.”Still faulting the coordination process, she notes that the treatment offered to the victims at the scene fell below average. Robutti states, “They (rescue team) could not identify the hospitals they should take the victims to, should it be a trauma 1, 2 or 3 hospital, depending on the level of injury of the victims. “I did not see any victim that was airlifted and I am sure there were people that were injured that should have been lifted with an air ambulance. We must try to improve on trauma care urgently in the country.” A consultant neurosurgeon in Garki, Abuja, Dr. Biodun Ogungbo, also faults communication strategy put in place during the incident, saying it was very poor.He notes, “We are definitely not ready to save lives in such disasters. For instance, I work in a hospital in Garki area, which is close to the site of the bomb blast, nobody called my hospital to say they were bringing any of the injured victims because there is no emergency line that they can call. ‘There is no form of communication between the public and private hospitals in the country. Hospital A, a public hospital, should be able to call Hospital B (a private facility), that our facilities are full, can you accept some patients in your intensive care unit. “Also, if some of the victims suffered a head injury, they should be taken to the National Hospital, Garki and not dumped in any general hospital where there is no CT Scan to check a head injury. According to Ogungbo, at present, there is no designated trauma centre in the country for treatment of victims of disasters. The lack of such trauma centres, he adds, has been a major reason why the country records more deaths when disasters happen. Ogungbo says, “Trauma centres are specialised medical facilities, not just the regular hospitals; and they are specially equipped and staffed by suitably trained personnel to manage all forms of trauma. We have no trained paramedics. Our ambulances are not equipped to save lives but to carry dead bodies.” As a way forward, Ogungbo urged the government and the private sector to set up regional trauma centres in such ‘hot spots’ as Abuja, Maiduguri, Jos and Bauchi.
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