Kelechi Esogwa-Amadi
Saturday’s presidential election turned sour for a pregnant woman in Port Harcourt as she was rejected by three hospitals, including the famous government-owned Braithwaite Memorial Specialist Hospital, during her complicated labour period.
TPCN learnt from close relatives and neighbours of the woman, identified as Mrs Emem, that she entered labour around 2 a.m. on Saturday, 23rd February, 2019 and was immediately rushed to Braithwaite Memorial Specialist Hospital, at Old GRA, Port Harcourt by good spirited neighbours as her husband was away on work engagements outside the city.
However, on getting to BSMH, the doctors around, TPCN gathered, rejected her, citing the presidential election about to begin by 8 a.m. that day as reason for their action.
According to our sources, every plea by the woman’s relatives and neighbours who took her to the hospital fell on deaf ears despite her critical as she was already bleeding by then.
Even after the hospital officials were reminded that election does not affect the work of medical doctors and nurses, they still refused to attend to the woman.
Left with no other option, the people who brought the woman took her to the Meridien hospital at D-Line area of Port Harcourt which also rejected her, using election as their reason. Every plea also fell on deaf ears, prompting the people to take the woman to another unnamed hospital which also rejected her.
Helpless, the people took the woman to a home care nurse but by then, she had lost almost all the blood in her body, hence she died.
“By the time we got to the nurse, she had turned pale and her palm was pure white. They could not save her. Those hospitals are very wicked, especially BMH. If they had attended to her, she wouldn’t have died. Now she has died and her baby also died in her womb,” one of the neighbours lamented.
TPCN further learnt that the late woman, who, until her death, lived in Diobu, Mile 1 axis of Port Harcourt with her family, left three children behind. As at the time of filing in this report, her remains had been taken to her place at Akwa Ibom for burial.
Effort to reach BMSH doctors for comments on the matter has so far not been fruitful.
However, an official of the hospital, who spoke under condition of anonymity, argued that it was wrong to accuse BMSH doctors of contributing to the woman’s death.
He added: “As long as I’m concerned, our doctors are professionals and caring. If the people that brought the woman actually met the doctors and if the doctors are free, they would definitely attend to them. We have been handling such cases. It could be that the woman’s situation had gone out of hand before they brought her here.
“You know that some of these women, when they are pregnant and you tell them to go and do a scan, some of them don’t go until it is late. They prefer to go to herbal homes or prayer houses. Some of them also refuse to be delivered through CS and it is only when their cases become precarious that they will now rush to hospital and by then it is late. It’s unfortunate.”
However, investigation into the incident is still ongoing.
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