Oluwatobi Itunuoluwa
The University of Ibadan has a healthcare policy that, at least on paper, sounds reassuring. Students are entitled to free consultations, basic laboratory tests, and medical treatments. In special cases, referrals to other hospitals are also covered. And with the University College Hospital sitting right there as a teaching hospital owned by the institution, one would naturally assume that healthcare is one thing UI students do not have to worry about. But ask any student who has had to visit Jaja, and the story changes completely. What the policy promises and what students actually go through are two very different things.
The most obvious problem, and the one nearly every student talks about, is the waiting time. It does not matter what you are there for or how bad you feel. You will wait. And you will wait for a long time. Opesan Pamilerin, a student in the Department of Forest Products and Production, Faculty of Renewable Natural Resources, put it plainly: “We spend tiring long hours waiting to be attended to, no matter how sick you are.” That is not an exaggeration. Students already know that visiting the school’s health facilities means writing off almost an entire day. Urube Janet, a student in the Department of History, Faculty of Arts, shared her own experience. “I was in Jaja one day and the queue did not move at all for two hours,” she said. Two hours, and the line had not shifted. For students who have lectures, tests, and deadlines hanging over their heads, that kind of delay is not just inconvenient. It is a real problem. And it directly contradicts the promise of accessible and efficient healthcare.
Then there is the issue of how students are treated by the medical staff. Not treated in terms of medication, but in terms of basic human decency. This is a complaint that comes up over and over again. Students describe some of the doctors and nurses as harsh, cold, and outright aggressive. Akinbile Aliyah, a student in the Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Arts, shared something that is honestly hard to hear. “The nurses sometimes are very aggressive when attending to students. I remember having an asthma attack on a certain day, and a nurse asked if I was feigning the attack so they would not waste drugs on me.” An asthma attack. And the response was suspicion, not urgency. Urube Janet also added, “Their lab people are weird and harsh for no reason too.” When the people who are supposed to care for you make you feel unwelcome or even afraid to seek help, something is deeply wrong. And this is where the gap between policy and reality becomes painfully obvious.
Even when students do eventually get seen, the quality of care they receive is another sore point. Many students have talked about being given drugs that did little or nothing for their condition, or worse, being given the wrong prescription entirely. Opesan Pamilerin also spoke on this, saying, “They usually give wrong prescriptions too. I do not know if the error is from the doctor or the pharmacy.” That alone is a serious concern, because wrong prescriptions are not just ineffective. They can be dangerous. Isiak Rodiat, a student in the Department of Wildlife and Ecotourism, Faculty of Renewable Natural Resources, had an experience that captures this problem clearly. “I had typhoid, but when I went to Jaja, they gave me only paracetamol and antibiotics for pain relief. I had to go get another medication from an external pharmacy.” Typhoid. And the prescription was paracetamol. She had to spend her own money at an outside pharmacy just to get proper treatment. When things like this happen, it is hard not to question whether the medical personnel at these facilities are truly equipped to handle what students bring to them.
And speaking of spending money, drugs being unavailable at the school pharmacy is another issue students deal with regularly. A student walks in sick, goes through the entire process, gets a prescription, only to be told that the drugs are not available. So they have to go outside and buy them. For a student managing a tight budget, that extra cost is not small. And it goes against the very idea of affordability that the school’s healthcare policy is built on.
What makes the whole experience even more draining is the bureaucracy involved. Visiting a UI health facility is not a straightforward process. It is a series of queues, each with its own waiting time, and by the end of it, the student is more exhausted than they were when they walked in. A final year student in the Faculty of Sciences described the process in a way that many students will find painfully familiar. “I remember writing my name outside before I could even stand on the queue. After several hours, I got inside only to join another queue at the doctor’s office. After seeing the doctor, I still had to queue at the lab, then go back to queue at the doctor’s office for the submission of my lab test results. By that time, I was already worn out.” That is the reality. And for someone who is already feeling unwell, going through all of that is not just stressful. It makes you wonder if the visit was even worth it in the first place. Many students have simply stopped going. They self-medicate or visit private clinics instead, which again, costs money they should not have to spend.
When you put all of this together, what you get is a healthcare system that looks good in writing but falls apart in practice. The policies are there. Free consultations, basic tests, medical treatments, referrals. It all sounds right. But the reality students face is one of long waits, rude staff, questionable prescriptions, unavailable drugs, and a process so bureaucratic it wears you down before you even see a doctor. There is a clear disconnect between what UI promises in its healthcare policies and what it actually delivers.
The problem here is not that the university lacks a healthcare policy. The policies exist, and they are well thought out. The problem is implementation. Good policies mean nothing when they are not supported by enough funding, enough staff, a steady supply of standard drugs, and a management system that actually works. The university’s management needs to look at these issues honestly and take real steps to fix them. Not promises. Not committees that go nowhere. Actual, deliberate action. There is a popular saying that health is wealth, and it applies here more than anywhere. Students who are unwell cannot perform at their best academically. It is that simple. A university that takes pride in academic excellence must understand that excellence does not begin and end in the classroom. It starts with the wellbeing of the students. If the health facilities meant to care for them are failing, then the foundation of that excellence is shaky.
What needs to happen is clear. More medical staff should be employed to reduce the pressure on existing personnel and cut down waiting times. Standard drugs should be stocked regularly so that students are not forced to seek alternatives outside the school. And the current system of endless queues should be replaced, or at least supported, by an appointment-based structure that allows students to book consultations ahead of time. None of these changes are impossible. They just require the willingness to follow through.
