And My Journey Takes Me To Luth And The College Of Medicine

A coat of paint here and a dab of paint there....especially on the college side. The Students Hostel no more reeks of putrid odour as someone has had the good sense to do something about the broken conduit plumbing system. But the cracks in the walls still peep through the patchworks! The good old Student Cafeteria is gone!

I had intended to access it via the tennis court side....but the old entrances have been barred....so securely with solid brick walls! In its place is now a shopping complex.....with a central alleyway.....and sliding glass doors to a dozen or more high-brow shopping suites....all bordered on the lateral side by YemYem Shopping Centre, a supermarket accepting online payment for its wide variety of assorted products!

Much said of the shopping plaza.
The Admin Block and the Auditorium in its rear....plus the annexed lecture halls, seminar rooms and labs still wear their old external looks....save for the ragged single unit ACs now replaced with bigger brand-new split units in the Admin Block. Trust administrators to take good care of themselves! For in sharp contrast, the Auditorium (we never called it the Tafawa Balewa Plaza as christened by college authorities!) now sports ragged seats on stilts in place of the fine retractable seats and locker desks we used to know!

And peering through the vertical glass windows of the Modular Theatre on its college side, something baffling caught my sight. A wooden partition? No! Not after the inferno that engulfed first the Female Hostel Extension....and later the psychiatry cum orthopaedic wards! And after some daft persons used paper wood and POP partitioning for the same theatre complex....resulting in invasion by moldy filth, I thought someone would have the good sense to divide the complex (into suites) with cement bricks this time around! Not after the erstwhile fungal invaders rendered the complex unusable for several years....prompting the postgraduate medical colleges to withdraw accreditation for surgical residency.....temporarily.

As I drifted and meandered through.....donning a false mien of an aimless wanderer, nobody took a second glance at me......not the book-clutching and stethoscope-wearing students and doctors.

In total, I counted five bank outlets.....trust the banks to have a nose for where money dwells! The car parks are also well endowed with exotic cars....Laurels, Corollas, Camrys, SUVs, Quests, Oddysseys....a visible sign of the new salary packages for government doctors....quite unlike those of us sweating it out in private practice!

And trust the pharmacists not to be left out of the action....for I did not miss the sign on the Ground Floor of their Faculty Building....pointing to PHARMACOGNOSY MODEL HERBAL CLINIC. I wonder what that means....for my enduring allergy to all treatments without doctors is refractory to treatment.

And before I forget, the link path between the A&E car park and the college via radiotherapy dept. has been blocked!

Dr Tosin Akindele Is A Lagos-Based Medical Practitioner And Social Critic

Disclaimer: "The views expressed on this site are those of the contributors or columnists, and do not necessarily reflect TheNigerianVoice’s position. TheNigerianVoice will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements in the contributions or columns here."

Articles by Tosin Akindele