The Coalition of South East Youth Leaders, COSEYL, has called on State and federal governments to make efforts to use the opportunity of COVID-19 pandemic to rejig the country’s health sector.

COSEYL made the call in a statement signed by Hon. Goodluck Egwu Ibem and Comrade Kanice Igwe, the President and Secretary-General respectively on Monday.

The Coalition noted that times when the elite travel abroad for medical reasons, leaving the masses to their fate is fading off.

The statement read, “This is a time to be truthful to ourselves. This is a time and a period when leaders and followers must sit in one round table devoid of class segregation and think of how to continue our existence here on earth.

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“We all have seen, we all have heard, read, and watched the devastation that the coronavirus has brought to the whole world. It exposed the whole world, but we must learn from our own point of experience down here.

“The question we must ask all our leaders; President, Governors, Senators, House of Representatives Members, First Class Traditional Rulers, House of Assembly Members and top clergymen is this; had COVID-19 been restricted only in our territory while Europe, Asia and America free of it, would we have seen you around all these while?

“As they ponder to give us that obvious answer, we must let them know of the truth that if coronavirus were to be restricted to this environment, majority of them would have ran abroad for safety. They’re only here with us now because there’s absolutely nowhere to run abroad.

“This is why we as the Coalition of South East Youth Leaders (COSEYL), the umbrella body of all the youth organizations in the South-East zone is calling on our leaders to please, gather and think of how to make our medical facilities worthy to be called hospitals again.

“We’ve also seen that most of the deaths we’re recording within our environment especially among our elderly one currently is not as a result of coronavirus, but as a result of other illnesses they’re used to traveling abroad to manage and take care of.

“Their inability to travel to India, USA, England, and China where millions are spent to manage whatever they’re suffering from every three to four months may have exposed them to our local hospitals with qualified doctors, but obsolete and embarrassing equipment for modern health facilities.

“We all read from the pages of the newspaper when it was reported at the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria that UNTH, Enugu that ought to be the postal hospital of every other hospital in South East has been in serious ruin without anyone knowing.

“Millions and if not billions are pumped into our health system every budget year, but we only have semi-dead health centres to show for it. Must we remain like this and do nothing after our experience with COVID-19 that’s yet to even leave us alone?

“It’s high time we started treating those who mess up with our health system like murderers because that’s what they’re. They’re making it impossible for our doctors and nurses to prove them here and save lives.

“Nigeria have good doctors and nurses who have distinguished themselves while working abroad simply because they were offered a good working environment, periodic training, better working conditions, and better salaries that helped and motivated them to bring out and put in their best.

“The hospitals built by our fathers which we inherited are in comatose because of our preference for foreign medical treatments. Instead of improving and expanding them, some hopeless destiny killers are even selling lands made for expansion some of these health facilities. What’s really wrong with us?

“We must address this issue urgently and we cannot address it by complaining in our various houses. We, therefore, charge every concerned citizen from today henceforth; make frantic efforts to meet your town union, your traditional rulers, your representatives both in Federal and State, speak through your priests and pastors, your imams if possible.

“Demand only just one thing and that’s the total overhauling of your major hospitals and immediate improvement in all of them. We cannot watch ourselves die like chickens when we know we have a solution. After COVID-19, other diseases like malaria are still with us and we must not keep quiet.

“Write it on placards, display it in church services for the priests to see and speak out, display it to the president and his team, display it to your representatives whenever they come to tell you about politics and all that, display it to your Governors whenever they boast of what they’ve done, display it to your wealthy brothers to remember that as they’re spending money building hotels, private universities, and churches. Let them know that hospitals are also wonderful investments.

“It’s obvious that political leaders once thought that only the less privileged ones will bear the brunt of their carelessness and lackadaisical attitude towards health care in the country, but now they are now suffering with the masses they left to suffer at home what the masses are already used to.

“These political leaders don’t have any confidence in their own indigenous government or private hospitals owned by Nigerian doctors because they know in their hearts that they have failed woefully in doing the right thing. They know that visiting our hospitals here means them facing the consequences of their several years of recklessness.

“Let’s reiterate, COVID-19 is a clarion call for political leaders to turn from their evil ways and restore our hospitals and medical health centers back to its feet. Budgetary allocations made for the health sector does not reflect at all in the health sector.

“Monies budgeted for the health sector, unfortunately, end up in the pockets of political leaders who claim to have executed these projects when in the real sense, they have not done anything.

“Unfortunately some prominent Nigerians who are businessmen and Entrepreneurs that are not part of the ruling class nor share in the blame of corruption going on in the country are also victims of the current incessant deaths that have claimed the lives of Nigerians.

“Most of these persons have provided employment opportunities for the people even when the government have nothing to offer to it’s citizens. Families of those dependants on these great individuals are in deep sorrow and uncertainty. May God help us.

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“South-East geo-political lost a lot of rare gems just between the ending of May to this June 2020 to the cool hands of death because of the poor medical facility. These are men that have the means to access better medical treatment abroad, but they could not travel out because of the travel ban caused by the coronavirus.

“Aside from the South East, so many prominent Nigerians have also lost their lives because of the inability to access better medical treatment in the country. We have to address this issue now before things get out of hand.

“Most of these deaths would have been avoided if we had better hospitals and improved medical facilities and good medical personnel in place to attend to Nigerians. Death is no respecter of persons. That you are not affected today doesn’t mean you’ve escaped. It may knock at your door tomorrow. All mortals must die one day but good medical treatment can prolong one’s time of death.

“For simple solutions, the federal government must be made to develop, improve and equip all the Federal Medical Centres in the country with modern medical equipment and medicines with well-trained doctors and medical personnel to handle those equipment effectively.

“The state governments must be made to equip all the General Hospitals and Health centres with modern equipment and medicines. They should revive all specialist hospitals in their states or establish new ones where there’s none that will handle special cases.

“Medical Directors heading government hospitals like Federal Medical Centres (FMC) and other government-owned hospitals who are doing excellently well should be encouraged and supported to do more.

“For example, the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of FMC Umuahia Dr. Azubuike Onyebuchi has and is doing very well to put the place in shape which has greatly ensured improved and better medical services and attention to patients who come there for medical treatments. He should be encouraged to do more for the medical center.

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“President Muhammadu Buhari must as a matter of urgency address the deteriorated health sector. The National Assembly must assist the executive to bring to bear positive results in our health sector.

” Nigerian politicians, Indian hospitals are closed from your reach, American health sectors are no longer accessible for you, British hospitals aren’t missing you at all, we hope you’ve learnt your lessons. You’ll be accessing them soon, we hope your three to four months experience will teach you to think home and fast before it’s too late.”