OGA POLICE!!!

“Oga park well…”

“Sir, I am a Doctor and I have a medical emergency, I didn’t mean to take ‘one-way’ but I can’t allow a patient die while I sit in traffic”

“Who you dey tell that kine lie?”

Brings out ID card,

“Officer, see my id card,  also if you look you can see my stethoscope in my car. I was just summoned that a young boy had an accident and was rushed to the hospital, other doctors are on strike but I can’t afford for the boy to die. That’s why I decided to rush there.”

“Na Ogun go kill you and the boy”

Roughly pushes open the door of the Doctor’s jeep and pulls him out by the neck.

"Officer, the law allows medical personnel on emergency to take any route possible."

“You be ambulance? Abi your jeep na LASAMBUS?”

Officer please do not be angry,  I seek only to save a life, I am sorry for going against the law.

“he he he. Na me you dey speak english for? You go see pepper today.” “where your particulars?”

The good doctor hands him the vehicle particulars. Just then his phone rings

Grring   Grring

“hello,”  

he listens for a bit,  

“put him on morphine, prep the theatre for surgery. If he flatlines use the defilbrator. I will be there presently” hangs up.

Officer, okay how can we resolve this amicably. I really need to go now. The patient might not survive another 30 minutes

“to bail yourself out go and bring 100,000”

"Aah aan, Oga police, it is people like you that keep giving the force a bad name. I will pay no bribe. If you insist that I am at fault, impound my car, I will take a taxi to the hospital and later I will have my lawyer come to the station. If I have broken any law, let us meet in court."

The Doctor moves to walk away.

The policeman cocks his gun. Take one more step and I go fire. I go just waste your life and I go talk say you be armed robber.

The Doctor is shocked to his bones.

The policeman beckons his colleagues who also come and together they begin to abuse and even slap the doctor.

You dey insult policeman? We go teach you lesson today.

Oya enter the van…

3 Hours later.

The Doctor has had to call his lawyer, a very popular SAN to meet him in the station, who after threatening to call the commissioner of police finally secures his release.

“Just before I go I want to meet the officer who arrested me. I have something to tell him”

“Officer yinusa no dey” another officer chimed. “ almost immediately we reach here n aim hin wife call am for phone. Him cum rush commot”

“God saved him” Just let him know, if anything happens to that poor boy. The blood will be on his head.

*************************************************************************************

The Doctor Drove like a mad man to the hospital.

However he was too late, the boy had long been dead…

The nurse walks shakily to the doctor. The father of the dead boy is a policeman. He is threatening to arrest the doctor who didn’t care enough to come and attend to an accident victim on time.

“oh no. not another police encounter today” the doctor walked with sadness etched on his face to attempt to explain to the Father that it was another policeman who caused the death of his son.

He walked into the waiting room and behold Officer Yinusa stood in front of him.

“… erm erm oga… na .. you… be … the … doc..cc.. tor?”

What? It was your son that was involved in an accident?

“Well well well, officer,  you are the one responsible for the death of your own son.”

If only our policemen could learn to do the right thing and follow due process.  How many more innocent boys have to die? How many more innocent citizens felled by police bullets then paraded as armed robbers shot while escaping? How many more wives made widows, children made orphans, all for selfish purposes.  When will the police learn to stop harassing the people they swore to protect?

“Officer I bear you no grudge, and I am sorry about the death of your son, however I hope this will jolt you and your colleagues to become professional in your conduct, doing the right thing at all times.”

SANITIZING THE NIGERIAN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM... DIVINE INTERVENTION OR SCAPE GOAT NEEDED???

On Sunday, 10th January 2016, just few days ago, as I drove to church, I came across an accident scene on Oregun road; a mobile police man had been thrown off his bike after hitting a turning Hilux van. (Whether he should have been riding a bike that if ordinary citizens tried riding would have been seized is a story for another day.)

Well the First Aider in me kicked in as I promptly parked, joined ohers who had stopped and checked him, only a few bruises were noticeable, but after asking how the accident happened and learning he had literally been thrown across the hilux and landed head first, it was decided it would be better to rush him to the nearest hospital for proper check up.

I volunteered to take him to the hospital, hoping my Red Cross membership would be vial to getting him attended to promptly.

With hazard lights blinking and horns blaring I made for the hospital as fast as I could and drove into the medical emergency ward. The attendant on duty (I don’t want to dignify by calling her a nurse as I believe a nurse would have been concerned with lives.) flippantly replied, “We don’t handle accidents here; find your way to the surgical emergency for accident cases”. I thanked her and she went back o disinterestedly doing whatever she was before we got there.

We went further down to the surgical emergency. We got there a few minutes past 8am, and first things first we collected a card, filled it and were asked to sit, after sitting till past 10am, a nurse finally came and gave him a shot of TT.  The wait continued until he was finally attended to around 11am. With drugs being written down and him being advised to take an x-tray.

I was baffled because if he had any internal injuries chances are the man might just collapse and die on his way home. (Well thankfully he didn’t and he is recovering well now.)

Anyway that aside, those three hours in the surgical emergency of that hospital showed me a lot and taught me about how sanctity for human life has become degraded.

An armed robbery victim was rushed in from a private hospital,(name withheld) he had been cut severely by the robbers and the private hospital had apparently done what they could before transferring him to this particular Government hospital,(Name withheld but your guess is as good as mine) hence he came in heavily bandaged and with an iv line attached to him. However he was still losing a lot of blood, and groaning in pain. It was a Good Samaritan that had spotted the man being robbed and ‘macheted’ and had rushed him to the hospital even though he was wearing only a boxer shorts and t-shirt.

As a first Aider my heart went out to him, and I thanked God he had been brought into the hospital (As a first aider your Job ends there) and I expected to see the hospital staff swing into Action. Alas they continued their banters as if nothing had happened. The driver of the makeshift ambulance was accompanied by two staff of the private hospital who presented some papers to the people at the reception desk. Lo and behold they pronounced first go and get a card.  next they began to complain, saying a whole(name of private hospital) sending us a paient. anyway, a card was gotten and filled and then the next pronouncement shook me to my bones.

“We are sorry there is NO BED!”

What? This must be a joke I guessed, but lo and behold the patient whose survival depended largely on being attended to immediately, was left lying and groaning in the back of the Volvo van(makeshift ambulance) for over 30minutes. I would walk out and back inside the ward with tears on my face, I went to the ambulance severally, the man was coherent intermittently, but there was nothing I could do at that point. The man needed urgent attention by qualified medical personnel.

Eventually a woman who seemed to be coordinating finally asked that one woman go take the vitals of the casualty, and I heard another response that shook me to the bone.

 Emi ti close o, mo fe ma lo le. In English: me I have closed o, I want to go home.

I wondered what happened to the sanctity of human life. Finally his vitals were taken, a bed was brought out from somewhere inside, a patient in the emergency ward transferred to that bed, and then the emergency bed/stretcher taken out to bring the casualty in. AFTER ALMOST AN HOUR!!!

Immediately he was brought in, they all began running helter-skelter to save his life, and I shook my head at the hypocrisy. As far as I was concerned if that man dies his blood is solely on the Surgical Emergency staff of the big government hospital in Ikeja.

What or who then do we blame?

The lack of beds?

The lackadaisical attitude of the staff?

Do we need divine intervention in the medical line?

 If a teaching hospital can treat human life this way, then what do we expect from other hospitals?

Or do we need some staffs to be sacked so others can sit up?

As I shared my experience with a fellow staff in the office this morning she reminded me of the case of a mutual friend who was shot a few years ago by robbers and rushed to this same hospital. Lo and behold, NO BED!!!

How can this worrisome trend be allowed to continue?  What is needed to be done?

DIVINE INTERVENTION OR SCAPEGOAT NEEDED?