One thing I always advise my friends that stay in Nigeria just like me, I tell them that if they can they should try their possible best to stay out of the hospital. Because the medical system in this country is poor, when you go there you find yourself praying even if you don’t believe in God.
One major factor in this is General Hospitals, otherwise known as government hospitals. They are built by the government for the people with the intention of bringing affordable healthcare to them. However, for a lot of them, the service is lackadaisical, staff are not paid well or on time, and even the hospital itself is not funded as it should be.
Sadly though, private hospitals are not better off. One might even say they are worse off because a lot of them start practicing without proper licenses, endangering the lives of the people who patronize them. There are good private hospitals, but they’re ridiculously few compared to poor ones scattered around everywhere.
When you notice how deplorable the state of most of these hospitals is, then you’ll understand why I said one should try their very best to stay out of the hospital. I’m not advising anyone to self-medicate, that’s harmful and could lead to adverse effects. I’m instead saying that if we indulge in a life of healthy living, and regular checkups, we won’t have to go to the hospital every time!
Personally, for about a year since I returned from Lagos, I’ve only had to pay a visit to the hospital once. And that was not even because I was sick.
Thankfully, I’m not someone that falls ill easily. Although I have to say that I don’t really live an active lifestyle, always going out and putting my body under stress. On the other hand, I actively avoid anything that would bring me stress; I avoid them like a plague. And then, what I mostly do is sit at my desk, typing away at my laptop day after day. When I’m not on my laptop, I’m on my phone or I’m in bed. When I'm not home, I'm either visiting friends or attending lectures. I try my best to exercise regularly and I also go for medical check-ups at the slightest sign that something could be wrong.
The check-ups are not done at the hospital, that would take up the entire day. You’d be shocked to learn that a procedure as simple as a malaria test can take the whole day in a government hospital, and you might not even get the result that day. That’s to tell you just how crowded such places always are. So I do my tests at these labs. Yeah, they cost a lot, but it saves me all that time. Now, with the result of the test, a doctor will advise me on the best way forward. If I’m to go on to the hospital anyway, I’ll be informed.
This has helped me immensely all this while and I’ve been able to keep myself out of the hospital. But alas, I had to get there eventually, right? However, I did say it wasn’t because I fell sick. It was for me to get new eyeglasses. I went to a private hospital because I needed to have it with me by the end of that very day, I didn’t want to be told to go back home and come back. As I was sure I would have been told if I went to a government hospital.
At first, I was scared that it would be an expensive procedure because it was a private hospital, but I was shocked at the price. The new glasses cost me just around the vicinity of 23-25 HBD. And I went there with the mindset that I would be needing 40+ HBD to get the job done.
I was there for not more than four hours and my glasses were ready. Thankfully though, my diagnosis was not complicated nor did it require too much time to fix. I’m short-sighted and function relatively well without the glasses, which I’ve been doing for the past few years. However, as I returned to school, I knew I had to get them or it would affect me. So I did the needful.
This was about two to three months ago, and I’ve not gone to the hospital again ever since. I’m not hoping to ever go, but life has a funny way of happening to everyone. Whether you want to or not, the body will decide when it wants to go to the hospital and you’ll have no choice but to take it.
And as you go there, waiting on your doctor, you follow up with prayers so that the doctor that will come and work on you will have all his thinking faculties intact. So a simple procedure does not end in tears.
