WESLEY GUILD HOSPITAL: BACK TO THE HOSPITAL WHERE I WAS BORN, AS A DOCTOR

WESLEY GUILD HOSPITAL: BACK TO THE HOSPITAL WHERE I WAS BORN, AS A DOCTOR

our commitment as Ijesa people.

The question of where I wanted to do my medical housemanship was not much of a difficult one to answer. By the end of my 5th year in medical school, I had concluded that either my housemanship or the one-year compulsory youth service would be in Ijesaland. Of course, that did not come without many of my contemporaries being puzzled about such a decision. A lot of them wondered why I, who had quite a stint in student politics and social development would be interested in Ijesaland given the access and network I have to aspire to secure placement in bigger and “happening” cities. But for those who were close enough to me, it was easy to understand the reasons behind the decision. I wanted to return home after 8 long years of not being fully around.

My love for Ijesaland and everything about it has never been hidden – virtually everyone around me knows how often I reference Ijesaland, her people, and values, as the source and inspiration for everything I do. For whatever I have achieved so far and will become, I owe Ijesaland a great deal; and so, every opportunity to contribute to the land excites me. Particularly, Wesley Guild Hospital means so much to me, my family, and the people of Ijesaland as a whole, for a lot of reasons.

I grew up to know Wesley Guild as the medical ‘haven’ for our people. It was and arguably remains the most important hospital serving Ilesa and the other 200+ communities that make up Ijesaland. Our people then, unlike now, knew and appreciated the privilege of having a tertiary healthcare center very close despite the relatively lower exposure they had. They knew it was the place where they could get the best care. No one joked with Wesley Guild! Even my grandmother, Late Dcns D.B Orolugbagbe whom I spent quality time with as a toddler never hesitated to ‘threaten’ us with a visit to doctors at “Ijofi” as she often called Wesley Guild, whenever myself or her other grandchildren were ‘under the weather, although she had no formal education. 

I – like most Ijesa kids of my generation – was born in Wesley Guild Hospital and had my entire healthcare as a child in the same hospital. It was right here that I got the dream of becoming a doctor, from seeing young, fresh doctors in the hospital, clad in well laundered white coats with beautiful stethoscopes hung on their necks, attending to us with warming smiles and captivating display of professionalism. I always watched on with great admiration as they went about their duties. I remember I was just in primary one when I told a female doctor who attended to me at the Children's Emergency that I wanted to be a doctor too. Two decades later, that dream became a reality.

When I, therefore, got offered a placement at Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospitals Complex (OAUTHC) on 13th December 2021, 13days after I swore the Oath, I knew I was only a step close to what I wanted. I prayed and hoped that the hospital clinical services department would post me to the Wesley Guild unit of the complex. Indeed, anything otherwise would not have made me happy. Thankfully, my dream of giving back to our people through Wesley Guild Hospital was actualized.

It is now 6 months on the job, working days and nights to contribute as I desired, and I have many stories to tell of it, now and in the future. The experience, I must admit, has not been all rosy. It has shaken my resolve about a lot of things. At least twice, I have sat long hours to ruminate on if I made the right choice when I decided to come here but each time, I tried to convince myself that things are probably not better in a lot of other tertiary centers. 

The Wesley Guild of today is quite different from what we used to know. There are a lot of newer structures in the hospital but it seems that the more things change, the more they remain the same or perhaps, get worse. I know there are many factors for this and I cannot go into the details. Very glaringly also, the typical compassion and empathy of Ijesa people which characterized the workers in the hospital as we knew them in those days seem to have been long eroded, and that has greatly affected the people’s perception of the hospital. But that is not entirely the fault of the workers. As much as I actively try to watch it, I have also acted not so well to patients a few times, mostly out of frustration from the system. Everyone is stressed by the system and it is hard to maintain sanity when in the face of obvious institutional deficiencies. 

Furthermore, our people compound the situation with this strangely prominent bad attitude towards their health. Ijesa people now seem to be comfortable with so many charlatans in town who eventually make their situations worse. The majority of those who present to us come in the late stages of their conditions after they must have paid all they have to people who claim to have solutions, and when they present, they do so usually with complications. Defective institutions, overworked staff, complicated cases, patients without necessary finance – all these lead to frustration and perpetuate the system failure. Maybe the current efforts to convert the hospital to a Federal Medical Center as we have desired for ages will be the breakthrough (only time can tell).

Already, several men and women of honour, great families in the land are doing their best for the hospital in terms of aids. Indigenes and non-indigenes who work in and for the hospital also give their all to a center that is our heritage. We remain grateful to them for their painstaking sacrifices and devotion. However, a lot still has to be done. We must as a matter of urgency begin a revival mission for Wesley Guild Hospital to return to its glory days and for healthcare to improve in Ijesaland. Our sons and daughters who have benefitted from the hospital have a huge role to play in the process. The ‘revival’ we seek must begin from our nooks and crannies – from our individual ‘orupo’s and our collective ‘ogbon’s before they can be harmonized to yield the best results. 

Over the next weeks, I and some other passionate young Ijesas will begin the execution of certain projects targeted at promoting the health of people across our 6 local government areas, using designed strategies based on the most important lessons learned from working in the healthcare space in Ijesaland. 

As I continue my work at the Wesley Guild Hospital, I am hopeful that our efforts meet the goodwill of our fathers and mothers across the land.

Dr. Emmanuel Olu-Animashaun writes from Ilesa.