By The Duke of Shomolu
Over the last 48 hours, I have had extensive conversations with Chimamanda’s media consultant, Eurocare’s media consultant, the chairman of one of Nigeria’s largest private hospital chains and one of Nigeria’s most brilliant medical practitioners who has consulted for the top five private hospitals in Nigeria and was recently headhunted from the UK by one of them.
I even took my time to listen to Olisa Agbakoba, who claims
to have handled over 50 medical claims in recent times in Nigeria.
The stats are staggeringly scary, and this is why I won’t
cry for Chimamanda.
Her case is precisely the case of that person who will not
shout until it happens to her.
This is not only to Chimamanda but to all 200 million of us.
I have learnt that we have only 43,000 hospitals in Nigeria,
with fewer than 10,000 beds, and a very shameful doctor-to-patient ratio.
I have also learnt that there is no regulatory framework
governing the health sector at any level and that the last law promulgated in
that sector was in 1963.
I have also learnt that Sir Manuwa was the last medical
official charged with regulating the sector in Lagos in 1976.
I have furthermore learnt that only Lagos state and Yobe
state have a hospital registration board, while the rest operate on a
free-for-all basis.
An estimated 50,000 people die monthly in our hospitals, a
killing density much denser than the insurgency in the north-east.
For all intents and purposes, if you, as a Nigerian, fall
sick and go to the hospital, the chances of coming out alive are less than 40
percent.
The beautiful thing is that the epidemic knows no social or
income boundaries, as our elites, in their usual manner, have tried to build
medical enclaves for themselves within the country, but still end up victims
like Chimamanda’s case.
Then, when they rush abroad, some come back like Muhammadu
Buhari, showing that there is nowhere to hide.
One in 100 Nigerian families has lost someone to medical
negligence.
I, the author, lost Mena Joseph Edgar, and just last week,
my egbon lost his wife, whose arteries were slashed open in a bid to serve her
intravenous drugs.
This article is not to recount the many cases or to list all
the deficiencies of the sector, and certainly not to profer solutions or shout
the usual wake-up call, but to laugh at us.
We are a country of goons, a clownish conglomerate of
selfish and self-centred baboons who fool themselves by calling themselves
Giants of Africa.
Our collective wickedness and selfishness turn around to
bite us as it is in this health system collapse, and we shout for a week and
then move on.
Until this happened to Chimamanda, she was out there
shouting whatever it was that made her famous without lending her very strong
voice to this matter because -it did not concern her.
Till it happened to me, I was out there running wild.
Nobody expects it to happen to them, because it happens to
the next guy, and we will go to his house as they did to me and utter the
rubbish – it is well- that we all say in self-deprecating hypocrisy.
I will never cry for Chimamanda because this was never her
business till it happened to her and I will not cry for anyone who has to go
through the harrowing trauma of losing a loved one in the putrid smelly bowels
of our healthcare system until we as a nation rise up like Olusegun Obasanjo
did when planes were dropping from the skies on a daily basis, to say enough.
One last thing, though, the health community cannot, each
time this happens, start shouting about the ‘traumatic conditions’ of their
service as an excuse to be killing people.
The next time any doctor or health official tries that with
me, God knows, I will slap the person.
When we are ready to collectively tackle this matter, I will
cry for Chimamanda.
For now, she should cry her tears, because I have my tears
to cry, just as relatives of the 50,000 that will die next month will cry.
Everybody, cry your tears, and if that won’t console you,
you may come and beat me.
Thank you.
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