A man, Wisdom Akpan, has accused the health workers of a primary health centre in the Joju area of Sango, in the Ado-Odo/Ota Local Government Area of Ogun State, of denying his sister, Rose, treatment till she collapsed and died at the front of the hospital.
We gathered that Rose visited the primary health centre to seek medical help but was denied access to see a doctor on the suspicion that she was a COVID-19 patient.
However, when efforts to get a doctor to attend to her proved abortive, the 44-year-old mother of three reportedly became annoyed and decried the health workers for refusing to treat her.
An eyewitness, Rauph Abiodun, said the health workers after ignoring Rose’s pleas to be treated, sent her out of the hospital for criticising them, but while on her way out, she suddenly collapsed and started gasping for breath.
Despite seeing her struggling to breathe on the floor, Abiodun said the doctors and nurses neglected her till she died.
He said, “When one of the community leaders informed me that a woman had slumped at the local government primary health care centre, in Sango, I quickly rushed there and upon inquiring what happened, I was told that she came to the hospital, complained that she was sick, demanded to see a doctor but was denied and directed to the general hospital.
“Out of annoyance, she started shouting at the nurses and doctors for refusing to attend to her but despite her shouting, they ignored her and sent her out of the premises. But while on her way out, she slumped at the entrance of the hospital and started gasping for breath. An official of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, one Mrs Balogun, who was present at the hospital called the attention of the management to her condition but none of them attended to her until she died.”
“I saw her corpse lying helplessly on the floor when I got there and also saw the victim’s landlord and brother, Wisdom. The incident happened on April 7, 2020, and I even took a photograph of the corpse. The nurses and doctors were apprehensive of moving closer to her, they were saying they are not ready to die because they thought she was a COVID-19 patient. While I was there, the matron arrived and started asking the staff on duty what happened but they gave her conflicting reports. It was Mrs Balogun that narrated what truly happened.”
Wisdom, while expressing shock on the events that led to his sister’s death, blamed the nurses and doctors for abandoning and directing her to another hospital despite knowing that getting a vehicle was difficult during the lockdown.
He said, “I received a call to come and identify if someone that collapsed at a hospital in Sango was my sister and when I got there, I found out that she was the one. I saw some uniform women there and it was one of them that used my sister’s phone to call me. I was told that before I could do anything, I needed to do a police report. I went to the Sango Ota Police Station and a policeman was told to accompany me to confirm the situation.
“I was not myself when the incident happened. I was confused and at a point, lost control of what to do and started asking people for direction because of the shock of my sister’s death. Nobody has come to us despite being denied treatment until she died at the hospital. She has not been buried and I am trying to communicate with her three children so we can inform our parents before burying her.”
