Some doctors got into trouble during the week when governor of Borno state, Babagana Umara Zulum showed up 2am at the state specialist and Umaru Shehu hospitals, both in Maiduguri.
The governor discovered that none of the medical doctors on duty was available at Umaru Shehu Hospital even as one of the doctors who lives within the hospital’s staff quarters did not respond to several telephone calls. The calls were made on the instruction of the governor.
Governor Zulum had on arrival gone round all wards where he met on ground 10 nurses out of the 135 working at the hospital while none of the 19 resident doctors, including two of those said to be ‘on call’ was around.
He ordered that the hospital’s medical director be called while he promised disciplinary action against absentee doctors. He wondered what could have been the situation if any patient had emergency situation that required the urgency of medical doctors during the night.
Thirty minutes earlier, Zulum had paid similar surprise visit to the state specialist hospital also in Maiduguri. While going round the emergency, maternity, male and female surgical, paediatric and orthopaedic wards, the governor met all the four resident doctors on call alongside some nurses and pharmacists.
