The Chief Medical Director (CMD) of University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH), Prof. Darlington Obaseki, said the hospital conducted its first open heart surgery in January 2023.

Obaseki said this on Tuesday in Benin at the 50 percent subsidised specialised surgeries’ inauguration as part of activities for the 50th anniversary of the hospital holding in May.

The CMD said the medical bill of one of the three patients for the open heart surgery was subsided by the Deputy Governor of Edo State, Mr Phillip Shaibu. He commended the deputy governor for being a pillar of support to UBTH and for also supporting the 50 percent subsidised specialised surgeries.

Obaseki said the 50 percent subsidy on speculated procedures such as Endoscopic and Laparoscopic surgeries, Colonoscopy, Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) among others would be done till the end of February.

The CMD said that although Nigeria could take care of its citizen’s health needs, medical tourism situation was responsible for citizen’s inability to place value on what it had.

According to him, the country is losing so much money to medical tourism when there are qualified medical personnel in Nigeria.

He said that Nigerians must learn to contribute cheerfully to the health sector, adding that a true philanthropist is the one who contribute to the health needs of his people.

Also speaking, the deputy governor, Shaibu commended the CMD for breaking new grounds in the health sector and for making the hospital a centre of excellence. He said that the state government had always leveraged on the facilities, expertise of the personnel and technological advancements of the hospital to drive health reform in the state. Shaibu also called on Nigerians to show love by contributing their quota to the development of the health sector.

Mr. Lucky Adubi, one of the patients, who benefited from the subsidised specialised surgeries, commended the hospital for making him to see the light at the end of the tunnel. He sought for sustainability of the subsidised surgeries so as to give succour to the poor.

The Federal Capital Territory Health Insurance Scheme (FHIS) is set to delist Health Maintenance Organisations (HMO) who are not meeting up on delivering quality healthcare services to enrolees.

The Director of FHIS, Dr Ahmed Danfulani, made this known in his address of welcome at the one-day interactive session with officials of HMO, FHIS and National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) on Tuesday in Abuja.

Danfulani said one of the ways to ensure that enrolees in the FHIS get quality healthcare service was to engage in an interactive session and get feedback on issues and challenges.

“The scheme has some challenges. Some healthcare providers do not give regular drugs to the enrolees. However, we are looking at an alternative to have private pharmacies near the healthcare facilities so that people can access those private pharmacies for drugs.

“There is another issue of delay in transition code. With all the HMOs here, we are going to resolve the issues here. To those HMOs or healthcare provider who are not meeting up on delivery of quality service to our enrolees, you will be delisted or suspended from the scheme.

“Some of the challenges are not a one way traffic. The Area Councils are supposed to pay at the right time and volume to HIS so that we can also service the healthcare service providers to carry out the programmes. Some councils are doing well in terms of payment but others are not and it is not encouraging.”

Also speaking, the President of FCT NULGE, Mr Zubiru-Abdullahi Kabir, said there was need to improve in healthcare delivery under the FHIS.

“The healthcare facilities don’t attend to our members promptly. With this interactive session, I except HMOs to do more and put in their best so that our members can get better healthcare delivery system.”

Also speaking, the Care Coordinator of Zuma HMO, Dr Arimoro-Yusuf Inuwa, said HMOs work to ensure that enrolees get the service from the healthcare facilities. Inuwa admitted that enrolees sometimes encounter challenges while trying to access healthcare in the facilities to no fault of theirs.

“However, some staff of healthcare facilities that prepare bills are incompetent and as such ineffectiveness leads to delay in payments and the enrollee suffers. There is need for frequent sensitisation of enrollee, most of them don’t know what to do at every level of healthcare delivery system.”

Doctors in a Turkish field hospital in the southern city of Iskenderun say they are treating increasing numbers of patients suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and panic, PTSD, attacks after last week’s earthquake.

Indian Army Major Beena Tiwari said; “Initially the patients were those who sustained injuries under the rubble, now more of the patients are coming with post-traumatic stress disorder, following all the shock that they’ve gone through during the earthquake and what they have seen.”

”Many people were coming with panic attacks,” she added.

The combined death toll in Turkey and Syria exceeds 37,000, and the earthquake and its aftershock has destroyed whole cities in both countries, leaving survivors homeless in the bitter cold, with many struggling to find shelter and basic sanitation.

The extent of the trauma survivors have experienced is enormous. Some have been pulled from the rubble after hours in the cold and darkness to discover family members have died or are missing, and the busy neighbourhoods where they lived have been reduced to mounds of shattered concrete.

Tiwari is part of a team of almost 100 experts from India who established a field hospital to treat survivors of the earthquake, one of the worst in Turkey’s modern history, after a local hospital was destroyed.

PTSD is caused by very stressful, frightening or distressing events, and people with PTSD can relive the traumatic event through nightmares and flashbacks, and may have difficulties sleeping and concentrating.

Iskenderun hospital commander Yaduvir Singh said they were also seeing more patients with infectious diseases and upper respiratory infections, and the thousands of people living in tents outside in freezing

The World Health Organization has launched a $43 million appeal to provide trauma care and rehabilitation, essential medicines, mental and psycho social support, and to continue routine health services in Turkey.

The Columbian President, Gustavo Petro has presented a controversial health reform to lawmakers which his government says will improve primary care, expand access to treatment, raise healthcare and worker salaries.

It also said the reform would fight corruption by eliminating private sector management of payments.

It is one of several key initiatives that leftist Petro, who took office just over six months ago, wants to push through to fight inequality, exclusion, and poverty in the country.

“What we want is for doctors to be able to go anywhere in the country and care for anyone, for the country to be organised in such a way that its people, its inhabitants, can always be cared for by healthcare professional,” President Petro said while presenting the bill to Congress.

The government initially wanted to eliminate private sector healthcare providers, or EPS, and making municipal and provincial officials take over that role instead. Critics said that ”would politicize healthcare and create corruption.”

Colombia’s healthcare system, in which workers pay to be affiliated with a certain EPS, with contributions from their employers, has long suffered from rampant corruption, with frequent complaints of patients dying due to lack of care.

The state pays medical costs for people who cannot afford to. However, while Petro’s success in building a broad coalition in Congress with support across the political spectrum helped him push through a tax reform last year, plans to remove healthcare provision from the hands of EPS caused tensions in that alliance and within his cabinet.

Coalition heavyweights including Senate President Roy Barreras and Education Minister Alejandro Gaviria, who led the health ministry in a previous administration, opposed the overhaul.

Petro and Health Minister Carolina Corcho have since backed down on taking healthcare provision away from EPS providers, but the bill includes provisions to set up a government body to centralise payments currently made by EPS to clinics and hospitals, to ensure quick payouts.

Recent reports show hospitals and clinics across Colombia are waiting for some 11.5 trillion pesos (about $2.4 billion) in payments from EPS. The bill would also set up primary care centers to guarantee swift care for all patients. Many Colombians receive medical attention through emergency services, which bogs down the health system.