MAKKAH Eye Specialist Hospital Bauchi, owned by Saudi Arabia-based Albasar International Foundation, was established in 2009 as a non-profit social service outfit providing treatment to patients with visual impairment and other eye problems, supposedly at affordable prices based on the vision of the hospital.

The Vision of the organization as captured on its website among other things is “to provide therapeutic preventative and educational programs to manage blindness and visual impairment in developing countries on a regional and international scale through non-profit social services to help the less privileged”.

However, a two-month investigation by WikkiTimes reveals that the hospital has deviated from its creed of affordable healthcare, and is now charging clients three times the amount in similar private institutions. There are also allegations of maltreatment of patients seeking medical help and systematic disengagement of indigenous staff on frivolous allegations, even as the investigation uncovered how the hospital shortchanged the Bauchi State Government in tax revenues for six years.

The exhaustive investigation has documented several harrowing experiences of patients who consult the facility and the high cost of services and medications offered by the hospital when compared to other health facilities in the state. For instance, Musa Haruna, a glaucoma patient, recounted how one Dr. Zulfikar Ahmed Abbasi, a Pakistani expatriate Consultant Ophthalmologist rained insults on him for his inability to keep his scheduled appointment with the hospital.

“I added about three days to the time that I (was) supposed to return for other rounds of medical check-up and drugs; I explained to him that my inability to come back was because I don’t have money,” Haruna lamented; adding that “He (Dr. Abbasi) lacks human relations such that he cannot draw you as patient closer to him to give you advice on what you need to do. He only shouts on us”.

Three different staff of the hospital in separate interviews with WikkiTimes have all testified of how doctors of the hospital consistently insult, bash and on many occasions beat patients even at the point of surgery. Dembo Musa (real name concealed to protect the staff from possible backlash from the hospital’s management) told WikkiTimes that Dr. Abbasi has earned notoriety for beating, touching female patients inappropriately during examinations and making derogatory remarks.

Another staff of the hospital who spoke on anonymity confirmed that the doctors are usually intolerant with their patients and use harsh words on them when they make the slightest unintentional mistakes, such as wrong sitting arrangements.

“Whenever a patient mistakenly fails to act the way they instructed them, you will see them insulting or beating the patient sometimes. We are not pleased at all; anytime patients complain to us about the habit of the doctors, particularly older patients that are supposed to be handled with care and patience,” the unnamed staff said.

High Cost of medication and other services

Although the hospital is supposedly a non-profit making entity, it has steadily over the years raised its prices for consultancy and treatments by far higher than other healthcare centres rendering the same services, in spite of the fact that it enjoys several privileges that other privately-owned hospitals in the state can only wish for.

In 2009, when Makkah Eye Specialist Hospital first commenced operations, the fee for registration and consultancy was pegged at N300 but today it is N1500, witnessing about 400 percent increase. Other price surveys conducted showed that while the Progressive Lens +2 addition 250 is sold for N8,000 at the Bauchi State Specialist Hospital, N9, 000 at Madina Optical and N15,000 at the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital Bauchi (ATBUTH), the same lens sells for a whooping N35, 000 at the Makkah hospital.

In addition, surgeries are way more expensive at the Makkah Eye Specialist Hospital than elsewhere in the state and medications cheaply imported from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are sold at very exorbitant rates. An inter-branch invoice of the hospital dated 7th July 2013 which was obtained by WikkiTimes shows that Optidex-T was imported at the rate of N230 but is sold to patients at the hospital for N1,600. Other examples are: Fluca imported at the rate of N300 is sold at N2000, Tobrex imported at N200, is sold at N1,800, Xolamol imported at N1,450 is sold for N3,800, and Optiflox imported at N165 is sold for a staggering N1,700.

Disengagement of Indigenous Staff

Our investigation further reveals that the hospital has over the years embarked on systematic disengagement of at least 24 indigenous staff who either protested against some of the inhumane bizarre conduct of some of the doctors or have demanded improved salaries and entitlements, allegedly citing trumped-up charges.

For instance, in a suspension letter obtained by this medium, Ikirama Abdullahi, a Bauchi indigene who was employed as a cashier of the hospital in July 2017, was abruptly suspended indefinitely on the basis of loss of cash receipt booklet which was in his possession without recourse to due process or fair hearing. When Abdullahi’s lawyer reached out to the hospital pointing out that his client had been suspended for misplacing a single cash receipt leaflet and not an entire cash receipt booklet as alleged in the suspension letter to him dated 9th day of December 2019; demanding them to rescind their position within seven days or face legal action, Abdullahi was reinstated.

He was, however, redeployed to serve as a security guard manning the hospital gate, a decision that forced him to resign. He alleges that his request to get his outstanding 10-month salary amounting to about N300,000 fell on deaf ears as the hospital outrightly refuses to oblige him and life has not been the same for him as he struggles to cater for 10 dependents, including his wife and child.

In a similar style, Umar Faruk, a clinical staff of the hospital, was illegally disengaged. He told our reporter that “when it was evident that I became critical of the hospital’s management in fighting for the rights of the indigenous staff who are consistently maltreated in the hospital, I became the target of the management. Faruk was eventually slammed with an indefinite suspension for allegedly trying to interpret a patient’s test result to her in the ward after he was spotted by the hospital manager.

READ MORE: https://www.icirnigeria.org/inside-makkah-eye-specialist-hospital-bauchi-where-exorbitant-charges-tax-evasion-have-become-norms/

Private hospitals are naturally expensive.