Posted by Dada Aladelokun on
They must have had sleepless nights, asking God on countless occasions to seize their lives, but such pleas have amounted to sheer waste.
They must have had sleepless nights, asking God on countless occasions to seize their lives, but such pleas have amounted to sheer waste. They most probably would have surrendered themselves to death, but for the widely held belief in religious circles that it is an egregiously sinful option.
'God, why are you still keeping us alive in this mess; where do we go from here…where?" They seemed asking, as they gazed thoughtfully into a future so uncertain and tortuous as their past! On May 27 it was, when the trio played host to Saturday Punch, pensive and confused.
Quite in a world of their own in a fairly roomy dilapidated wooden structure erected in the early 40s, the smallest ant at the infirmary knows them as the 'landlords" of the National Orthopaedic Hospital, Igbobi, Yaba, Lagos, where, for quadriplegia (paralysis of upper and lower limbs), they have remained bedridden for between 16 and 25 years!
Yes, they don't have the Cs of O of the renowned hospital, but being the oldest among the patients, and having outlived many administrations, they have remained a stubborn pain in the neck of the hospital's management team. And for the inherent burden of their crippling liability to the hospital, which cries stridently for upgrading, the team has told them in clear terms, 'It's time you left this hospital; this is not your home!"
Count it not as just an innocuous threat from the hospital's authorities; unless urgent help comes 'from above" the trio may have their cross to carry at the already congested under-bridges in the city, any moment from end of this month. They have been shown the Red Card!
The impending cul-de-sac will certainly not catch them unawares, but may prove too confounding for them. They know this, and it's already giving them heartbreaks.
Palpable frustration was all over 55-year-old Joshua Omoniyi Olaniyan when Saturday Punch made to hear his story. Lying face up, his deformed hands rested squarely on his broad chest. Born at Ola, Kwara State, he nearly burst into tears, lamenting the callousness of fate to him.
He recalled his journey to the hospital: 'I had heard about Igbobi, but I never thought anything could take me here, let alone spend years on sickbed. I got here on May 24, 1989. As a trained driver, I was working with Five Star, a company in Lagos. It happened that day that I, as usual, had to drive my Oga home after the day's work. We got to Ipaja area when armed robbers made to attack us. Luck ran against me as I was hit by their bullets; that was how I became a patient here till today."
Speaking on the role of his family so far, Olaniyan said: 'Let's forget the family issue; I have had to carry my burden through the help of God. I am really grateful to this hospital. The nurses and everybody here have tried for me in all ways. I still have parents but they are very old. My wife and I had long parted ways even before my problem began. The two children she bore for me are still alive. One of them is still in secondary school; the other one, a male, is yet to find his feet. He was here recently to tell me that he wanted to be riding okada to earn a living; that is what we are still dragging. Except God, I have no helper anywhere."
On how he handles his upkeep, he said: 'We live on charity, especially the kindness of those that come around to visit their people in the hospital. They do come here to visit us too and on leaving, they would drop something, however little for us."
Now that the hospital has asked him to prepare to go, how does he want to handle his situation? Olaniyan said pitiably: 'It is a tough one for me. I think the only place I can stay after leaving here is under the bridges because I can't go back home with my condition. Who will take care of me? I really thank all in this hospital for their efforts on me through all these years. The nurses clean us up, feed us most times, and do every other thing to keep us alive; I am not happy staying here forever, but how to survive out of here is my greatest headache now. I can only appeal to the government, organisations and the entire Nigerians to have pity on me."
At that point, he could not hold his tears as he submitted: 'I don't know why my life could turn this sour, I don't know. Nigerians should help. All I need is a place to rest my head and someone to care for me till it pleases God to finally say, enough of this trouble."
On the bed next to Olaniyan was a bag of bones, complete freak of nature, Igara-born Ibrahim Yakubu who got admitted into the hospital on December 9, 1980, no thanks to a road accident he had the previous day. Smallish, every part of his body has grown ungracefully thin, as his whole frame cuts a repulsive picture.
In what psychologists would term psychogenic fugue, Yakubu could not remember his age or the day he was born! Equally shocking is the fact that he has weathered the storm of life all alone: No wife, no child, no sibling, and no parent! Yes, it sounds so incredible, but he told it to Saturday Punch.
Before darkness beclouded his life on the fateful day, according to him, 'I was living alone at Ifo in Ogun State, and I was working as a labourer with Guffanti, a construction company. I had no inkling of the tragedy coming my way when I boarded the commercial bus that got involved in the accident that led me here. Well, I thank the company; they brought me here and gave me N18, 000, but that was all. I have since remained useless here because I cannot use any part of my body for anything.
'The day I was brought here, we were 10 in all. As days went by, seven died, leaving the three of us behind as living dead. Now that we have been asked to prepare to leave here, I don't know what will happen to me because I have nobody and know nowhere, including my village."
From him too, came profuse pleas on public-spirited Nigerians to spare them a thought 'before we are pushed to the streets for dogs to feed on." 'As I am now, I am helpless; nobody can help me except God has mercy on me," Yakubu who looked close to his 60s, added with agonised voice.
Before Saturday Punch got to him, 43-year old Joseph Onwudinjo, the third of the 'landlords," was all songs on top of his voice, beseeching God to rescue him from his straitened circumstances. He struggled to laugh away his sorrow, but failed, as he blew hot on the devil for putting him in the situation.
All through, he lay face down, no thanks to the bed sore that would not allow him to lie on his back. In that position, the Igbakwu, Anambra State-born man recalled his unpremeditated journey to the hospital where he has remained since February 23, 1986: 'I was living at Maroko then, while working with Bouygus Nigeria Limited, an engineering company operating in Lagos. It happened that day that we were working somewhere at Ikeja when I fell from a crane. My back broke and since then, I've been useless. As you are looking at me, my legs are stiff."
Fighting tears, he recalled the role of his employer: 'I was earning N250 then. When it happened, they took me here, paid my salary for six months and stopped. I have since faced my troubles alone. To worsen my situation, I had nothing to fall back on; all that I had laboured for were destroyed when Maroko was demolished then. Then I was in pains here; somebody brought me the sad news."
Many would, however, think that his family would be there for him, but he had this to say: 'God has remained my pillar of support; I have not a single child because I never got married; my parents had died long before my problem began, and the only sister I have is married and based in Jos. Since I got here, no relation has bothered to know my situation. God knows why this is happening to me; it is clearly beyond me."
Like his colleagues, Joseph was not happy that the hospital's authorities were poised to evict them. He expressed it thus: 'Where do they want us to go? They have to have pity for us. We know that they have tried for us, but as things are, we are helpless. Nigerians should please help us out; this burden is too heavy for us to bear."
Getting officials of the hospital to speak on the matter was so uphill a task. After much ado, Saturday Punch got the attention of Mr. Ademola Esan, the infirmary's assistant director of administration, who however maintained that only the hospital's medical director, Dr. Gbolahan Adebule, could speak on the matter. That was over a month ago, when a Good Samaritan apprised Saturday Punch of the plight of the 'landlords." Spurred by the typical stubbornness of a masquerade, Saturday Punch would not allow Esan a breathing space through importunate visits and telephone calls. 'The MD is willing and eager to see you; the only thing is that he has been very busy, in and out of the hospital," Esan once assured Saturday Punch.
At last, Adebule spoke on May 27. He had to temporarily shelve an official commitment he was coordinating, to explain the hospital's side of the burning matter to Saturday Punch. 'Where they are now is one of the earliest structures erected here even before the Second World War; it is almost collapsing. What we are out to do is to turn the place into female section of spinal cord injury patients, and constitute the quadrangle beside it to a mini gym. The principle of community-based rehabilitation is that they go back to their communities, where trained multi-disciplinary therapists will look after them. Occasionally, they can always come here to see a doctor, particularly if they develop any complication that is beyond them. This is to encourage people to go back to their communities for rehabilitation," Adebule explained, justifying the move to force out the trio.
He said further: 'Here, I have only one trained rehabilitation nurse for that unit, and she is already looking after 16 bedded wards for male spinal cord injury patients. The seven female spinal cord injury patients that I have now are scattered all over those wards. There is no way she can leave that place and start looking after them in the three different wards. It is very tedious for a person. We have to collate them together at a spot for easy management by the nurse. The rate at which we have spinal cord injury patients is such that patients, who have had spinal cord injury after 1985, numbering about 409, have all gone back to their communities within three months. I still have these three, preventing me from planning the facility to develop the unit, which we want to make one of the best in Africa. If the 409 patients had remained here, I doubt if they (the 'landlords") would have a place to even stand, even in the hospital's vast compound.
'We have informed the Health Ministry, and the principle is, these three people cannot prevent this worthy facility we are working on. And if the Spinal Cord Injury Association of Nigeria has no spaces, then we have to get philanthropic organisations to help us mobilise them. We have contacted a number of people, including the Rotary Club, Lions Club; we have also got the letter of somebody from Ibadan. But so painful is the fact that the trio has always seen the hospital's management as being callous. Everybody has now come to realise that you don't have to stay in a hospital to be looked after forever. They cannot continue to hold us and other Nigerians that would need better facilities to ransom."
When notified that some of the embattled patients had nowhere to return to, indignant Adebule asked: 'Is there anybody who knows not the local government area he hails from? Don't they remember that some people brought them here? People should not regard themselves as Omo Ijoba (government's children) because they have spinal cord injury? We've told them, tell us your village, we will go to your Oba, your Baale or Igwe. We will find out the kind of health centre around their communities. We have told them that, latest by the end of June, they should let us know their various places so that we can start mobilising for them; that is what we are waiting for. They are free to contact any group; we are also contacting many groups too. In December, this hospital will be 60, and the female spinal cord injury ward will be commissioned to commemorate the anniversary; are these three going to stop the project? They should not. They must also show understanding and appreciate the fact that it has cost the hospital fortunes, to care for them all ways, all these years."
Still boiling with worries, the medical director took time off to conduct Saturday Punch round the contentious site, the 'landlords' enclave," accompanied by Esan, Mr. S.A. Opatade, Chief Posthetist/Orthotist of the hospital, alongside its other top officials.
Mrs. Bola Omotoye, the Chief Nursing Officer in charge of the Spinal Cord Injury Unit, alluded to records to underpin the MD's position, explaining: 'What we are facing here is a worrisome situation whereby quadriplegia is on the increase, and the victims require, as a matter of urgency, improved accommodation and better management. Unlike in the 90s, when we had 15, 25 spinal cord injury patients, we had 42 in 2001; 61 in 2003 and 55 in 2004, and we are at it this year.
'We have really tried at giving these three men, total nursing care. Each day, we, among other things, bathe them, turn them every two hours, treat their pressure areas, empty their urine bags, and feed them. They should appreciate all these and allow the unit to grow for others like them to benefit."
'But these persons cannot move about nor have relations," Saturday Punch told Mrs. Omotoye who retorted: 'It's a lie; they attend churches every Sunday. They go out to beg on their wheel-chairs, and I tell you, their people do come here, to even collect money from them; it's only that they don't want to leave here."
As the situation stands, the two parties - the 'landlords" and the 'authentic landowners" - seem maintaining irreconcilable standpoints, which put the latter in an abyss of despondency, while the former too, remains unsettled.
'The patients' situation is a bad reminder of the painful death of the late Basorun M.K.O Abiola; we need gold-hearted people like him in situations like this. Such people of fellow feeling are few and far between in our society today. Their case is indeed a challenge to the rich amidst us, who don't see wisdom in God's injunction that we must be our brothers' keeper. I have no doubt, however, that humanitarian organisations like the Rotary will be readily disposed to lending a helping hand to them," observed Sumbo Babatunde Olorunesan, chief executive, Sumbee Ray Communications Nigeria Limited.
Olorunesan, a widely travelled communications expert, added: 'It is high time our leaders fashioned out sincere people-directed agenda. In advanced societies such as Britain and America, government has special considerations in form of institutionalised care programmes for this class of patients; we can learn from them."
Manna, no doubt, is desperately needed to soothe the agitated nerves of both parties.
You may be a tenant where you are; certainly, the 'Igbobi landlords" need you!
Saturday Punch, June 04, 2005