By Yakubu Ahmed-BK (Maibindiga)
It has come to light that the only Kidney Dialysis Machine at the Specialist Hospital in Sokoto was purchased and warehoused at hospital by telecommunications giant, MTN.
The machine serves patients from Sokoto and Kebbi states mostly. I was at the Unit to visit a patient yesterday and the MTN’s imprint and logo were pasted on walls of the Unit. My worry about the humanitarian (?) gesture of MTN was not hinged on the gesture itself but on the implications it has on poor patients.
The charges are exorbitant and no matter the urgency of any patient’s case and no matter how short one is on the fee, the officers in charge usually sends patients away saying “the machine here is owned by MTN and we have instructions not to attend to anyone without money.”
I find this state of affairs worrisome because I just wonder what’s so special or difficult or a big deal about a dialysis machine that neither Sokoto nor Kebbi state governments could just purchase a number of them, get technicians and nurses fully trained on them and make services free to indigenes, at least.
Yobe state had done that since when former governor Ibrahim Gaidam was in office and I can remember that a man I know, Alhaji Ali Gaidam (now late) had enjoyed the privilege of treatment free of charge in Damaturu. Borno too, has since done the same since the time of Alhaji Kashim Shettima. Governor Zulum who inherited the policy has not only continued with it, but has given specific orders that the rampant cases of kidney problems now plaguing Borno and Yobe states be researched and investigated in order to know what action to take to deal with it.
What then is so big a deal about it that something similar cannot be replicated in Sokoto and Kebbi?
Can anybody who has answers to these posers help me out?
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