Nigerian doctors have taken online to share alarming stories of how they were being attacked while on duty.
The doctor with the Twitter handle @Sports_Doctor2 had started a thread of how he was almost lynched to death in the course of discharging his duties.
This comes on the heels of the murder of one of his colleagues, Dr Uyi Iluobe, by gunmen who attacked his hospital, Olive Clinic, at Oghareki, in the Ethiope West Local Government Area on New Year’s Eve.
In his case, he was almost beaten to death by an aggrieved family who accused him of killing their daughter following his intervention.
He described the experience as a terrifying moment of his life claiming that Nigerian doctors have no future practicing medicine in Nigeria.
“The day I knew I didn’t have a future practicing medicine in Nigeria was the day I was almost beaten by a patient relative in children’s emergency after their daughter died.
“It took the quick thinking of the matron to use her body as shield to save me that night. What happened?
“It was a Saturday morning and I was on call in Children’s Emergency.
“I arrived my happy self, cracked jokes with the matron on call and did a brief ward round with the consultant, and Senior Register on call. We came to this baby girl that was looking seriously sick.
“She looked like a ske*** as she was severely malnourished, this also caused her to have severe sepsis (infection).
“My consultant noticed the antibiotics she was placed on weren’t working as she was still having fever, changed it, and told me to write a referral to Dietitians.
“The dietitians came reviewed and wrote out a diet plan for the child. Now if you see the parents of this girl, they both were looking healthy with the father looking like a weight lifter.
“The mum was told to go get the new drugs outside as it wasn’t available in the hospital.
“Now from just looking at that child, you would know she’s been sick at home for a long time but her parents didn’t bother to bring her to the hospital up until now her situation is critical. It was evening and the mother had not gotten the drug until her child entered “crisis”.
“We resuscitated her, that was when the consultant shouted at her and she left to get the drug immediately.
“The matron called me to come and administer the drug which I did after calculating her dose using her weight (Children’s drugs are given according to their weight).
“It wasn’t up to 30-45mins, the matron started shouting, “Doc, Doc”, we all rushed down only to see the girl having another crisis. We tried everything but the girl didn’t make it this time and while we were doing this, I saw the wife pointing at me and talking to her husband.
“Immediately we told them the girl is dead, the hefty looking husband with his brothers rushed to grab me, the matron blocked them and my chiefs took me inside the Resident call room and locked the door. I could hear them shouting they will kill me, I was TERRIFIED!!!
“I had to be smuggled home the next day. They believed the drug I gave a severely malnourished child with severe sepsis killed her when I did my absolute best to save her. Now, this is the plight of every average Nigerian doctor, your life is ALWAYS at risk if a patient dies,” the tweets read.
A user @krativity said it was an ugly experience for a doctor (name withheld) who almost got killed by some family members who lost their mother in 2013.
“At a big hospital in Abuja in 2013, some family members jacked a doctor & were trying to throw him down from 2 storey building because their mother passed on & they insisted the doctor must continue to try. It took the help of securities to safe the doctor from dying that night,” the user disclosed.
@Winietreasure said she was almost accused of murder after administering Patient Care Management (PCM) on an aged patient who passed away a few hours later.
“When I was serving as an auxiliary nurse, I administered PCM to an aged patient; two hours later, he passed, and his children came to look for me at the nursing station. They said I was the last person that attended to him. They were almost accusing me of murder,” she tweeted.
Another user @KeepMuving while lending his voice said medical practitioners were almost beaten after a guy died in an undisclosed hospital in the area.
“This makes me remember that year when one hospital in my area was destroyed because a particular guy in my area died there. Boys rushed in, beat any doctor, nurse and workers they set their eyes on. Burned down some parts of the hospital that year. Some elderly men tried to stop,” the tweep replied.
“This almost happened to me but I thank God because I was already withdrawing the injection just to inject the man and he started convulsing and he died! Had it been he convulsed after injecting him, what will be my fate?” a user with the handle @Dolcezza111 tweeted.