He explained that when he got wind of the explosion and number of casualties already at the hospital, he immediately called for re-enforcement to enable them tackle the situation, pointing out that the victims had about 80 percent burnt.
Dr. Maduka said this on Tuesday 26th January 2021, in his office when The Story, visited him in Agbor, Ika south local government area of the state on first hand information about the hospital.
“Some of the things burnt patients suffers are pains, freeze and infections. When you talk about pains; pain relief, antibiotics and drips were given”, stating that the necessary first aid treatment was administered on them to reduce their pains.
On the claims that there was nobody at the emergency when the victims were rushed to the hospital, the Zonal Medical Director said he and a team of medical officers were on ground to receive and attended to the patients.
“We have three senior medical officers on ground and five junior medical doctors who were still around when they were brought to the hospital. We have a total of nine medical officers including myself”.
He noted that the hospital treats isolated cases of burns, “If somebody is in the house and kerosene poured on his legs, we bring them here, they are treated here and they go. It is base on the extent of burn. These ones that they brought here, there was none that is below 80 percent. If you cannot do good, don’t do harm”, he noted.
Continuing, he said: “Keeping the patients when you know that you are not the one to manage them, is wrong. You must make arrangements for onwards transmission”.
According to the Agbor hospital Medical Director, ambulances were deployed to them apart from the one on standby at the hospital and to the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Asaba, when news filtered in that some persons who were passingby got affected and were rushed to the federal health institution for medical attention by Good Samaritans.
“As we were here, they were carrying must people to FMC and FMC was telling us that some people were already there. We were wondering how they got there, it was later we got to know. The Commissioner deployed one ambulance to FMC so that when the patients there are stabilized, they could be moved to UBTH.
“Now, the issue of taking care of burns is depended on the extent of the burn. I am a Consultant Gynecologist, I refer gynecological patients from here sometimes depending on what is involved. It is not everything that you can manage in your place. You cannot keep patients just because you want people to see that you are treating them whereas I know that at the end of the day, they cannot be treated”.
Dr. Roy, disclosed that the state government was already building a Trauma Centre that would be the biggest in Africa when completed where cases of burns and accident victims would be catered for considering the number of accidents that occurs on regular basis around the hospital.
“Equipment for the treatment of burns is not a magic, all you need is that there should be a dedicated Burns Centre. You do not treat burns patients in an open ward because infections will just enter and kill them.
“In a Burns Centre, you don’t walk in and walk out like that. It is highly secluded such that infections don’t come around it but even at that if the percentage of burn is high like we saw in these patients, the chances of survival is very low. From this incidence, I disagree with anybody that says we did not do our best, it is not the cases for us”, he said.
