The attention of LASUTH’s Management has been drawn to an Instagram video by @justadetoun, on Tuesday, 14th of June 2022, about the Dental Centre of the hospital. We were initially not inclined to engage in a social media tussle with the lady but given the recent viral nature of the video we respond thus.
Some of the issues raised are:
1. Lack of power due to debts owed PHCN/Ikeja Electric.
2. Good and responsible doctors but no materials to treat patients.
3. Lack of equipment i.e., bad chairs, lack of functional suctioning machine, digital x-ray, machine, absence of air-conditioning system.
4. No treatment despite payments made by patients.
In addressing these issues, it is pertinent to shed light on a few things about the Dental Centre of LASUTH. The Dental Centre (DC) comprises of five different Departments each with its own specific clinical activity.
We have always updated our patients and other stakeholders regarding the effort of the hospital management by issuing press statements addressing the challenge we have had in recent times about power and we have appealed to the general public on this situation.
The power outage is a fallout of the national energy crisis has recently become an unfortunate phenomenon in our daily lives. The hospital has not had supply from its only power source, the Independent Power Project (IPP) and had been running on generators for about six weeks non-stop! Diesel prices as everyone knows, are currently very high. The very high cost of procuring diesel has necessitated the painful decision to ration power supply in the hospital. This is in addition to the fact that the three generators we operate need regular times to cool down in between running them. It is NOT true that the hospital owes IKEDC as it never gets supply from that organisation.
However, the hospital management has ensured a 24/7 power supply to all the Emergency Units, Intensive Care Units (Adult and Neonatal) as well as the Operating Theatre Suites.
On the issue of no materials for doctors to work with, purchase and supply of materials were reduced during the COVID-19 pandemic and this was because treatment activities were drastically reduced to protect the staff of the Dental Centre from aerosol generating treatment which is peculiar to dentistry. However, the level of treatment is gradually returning to normal and the usual quantum of supplies is gradually being restored.
While some of the dental chairs may be old, they are still very functional and the hospital management is currently compiling a list of hospital equipment due for placement.
The digital x-ray machine developed a fault at the material time of the complaint but it has been restored. The delay was because the faulty part had to be imported from Germany.
These are very challenging times for a lot of organisations but we will like to assure the general public that Mr. Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has always shown his readiness to support the health sector, especially LASUTH.
We will continue to strive for the excellence we are known for.
Signed:
LASUTH Management
