When many Nigerians celebrate yet another Christmas next month, it is unlikely that Mrs. Joy
Bassey, who lives in the Nigeria Navy Barracks in Ojo, Lagos, will share in the collective joy and merriment.
Almost tearfully, she recounted to SATURDAY PUNCH in her residence on Sunday, how she had undergone a harrowing experience, which eventually cost her all that she had ever held dear in her life, as well as her future.
Bassey’s story began on April 2, 1999 in Lagos. Being quite heavy with child, that day she started experiencing the pangs of labour. She was immediately rushed to the Nigeria Navy Medical Centre in Lagos, where she had previously registered for ante-natal care.
She said that when she arrived at the centre, she did not meet the resident gynaecologist (name withheld), who was also in charge of the centre, on duty. But he was contacted on the phone by the nurse on duty.
Bassey said, “In response, he directed the nurse to inform my husband to buy or donate a pint of blood before his arrival. But it took the doctor a long time to come to my aid. I was in the hospital between 10 am and 11 pm.”
In the meantime, she had to send for her husband, who also worked at the medical centre dockyard, Victoria Island. But it took a long time before he got to the hospital.
Fortunately, Mr. Bassey was tested and found fit to donate blood to his wife, which he did.
All the while, she claimed, the doctor was unavailable to attend to her. He was absent for about eight hours at a stretch. She said, “What really beat my imagination was the fact that this doctor clearly knew from my medical record that my first pregnancy was still-born and my second pregnancy was so complicated that I was eventually delivered of the baby through Caesarean section.
“He did not attend to me. Instead, he instructed the nurse on duty to take care of my treatment and walked away.”
Bassey said the doctor had left her at the mercy of the nurse, who could do nothing to salvage her condition. On the following day, which was April 3, 1999, and her second day in labour, she bled profusely.
Recalling those moments, she continued, “I virtually stood between life and death. Everybody who witnessed my situation doubted that I would survive the bleeding.
“At this point, numerous frantic phone calls were made to the doctor. When he finally came in the afternoon, he met me in the labour room, lying helplessly on the ground. But all he did was write a referral letter to the Nigeria Army Base Hospital in Yaba.
“This is the action he should have taken the previous day. I was taken to Yaba Military Hospital at the point of death.”
Bassey was examined on admission at Yaba Military Hospital. She told our correspondent that the medical report showed a “restless, sweating woman with cold, clammy extremities, very pale, warm to touch, dehydrated with a pulse rate of 130/bpm and a blood pressure of 80/50mmHg.”
She alleged that the report was signed by an army medical doctor, Col. I.E. Nwakor, who is now late. On the orders of the latter, who wasted no time in describing her situation as hopeless, she was wheeled to the surgical theatre, where doctors and other medical personnel battled for over seven hours to save her life.
But it took two months before Nwakor informed her that she had lost her baby, her womb, and that her bladder was badly damaged because of the complications that resulted from her delayed labour. She got the information late because she was yet to recover at the time.
Mrs. Bassey blames it all on what she alleges as the Nigerian Navy doctor’s negligence.
Bitterly, she said, “He has caused me so much grief and mental agony. I did not only lose my baby, I am afflicted with an irreparable and permanent disability of my reproductive system, to the extent that childbearing is eternally impossible.
“My bladder was badly damaged and I was always wet with urine and smelling. My urinary tract was infected as a result. I had to undergo several surgical operations to arrest vestico honeypot fistula. In addition to this, I lost my job at a popular record company.
“My husband could not bear the pain any longer and so, he wrote a petition to the Director of Medical Services in 1999.”
The outcome of the petition, she added, was a board of inquiry set up on the orders of the Navy top brass to investigate her claims. In the end, the board recommended that the doctor should face a court martial.
Two years later, the Navy doctor was tried and found guilty of professional negligence. Upon recommendation by the court, he was demoted from the rank of Navy captain to commander.
Yet, Bassey was left to bear the burden of her physical condition alone. She said, “My health was gradually deteriorating. I was left with no other choice than to seek a lawyer to confront the naval authorities with the injustice and abuse of human rights that I had suffered.
“After a series of correspondence between my lawyers, the naval authorities recommended treatment for me overseas. I was formally invited by the Director of Medical Services of the Nigeria Navy at the time.
“Also I was sent to Col. Okafor of the Nigerian Army Base Hospital, Yaba for a comprehensive medical report that was in turn mailed to Assuta Hospital in Isreal. I learnt that well over millions of naira was approved for my treatment abroad.”
Bassey said she jetted out of the country to Isreal on February 19, 2004. On arrival, she discovered that no concrete arrangement had been made for her to undergo a comprehensive medical treatment. Eventually, she returned to Nigeria without being treated, as was promised.
But the worst was soon to come. In 2006, cracks began to appear in Mrs. Bassey’s marriage of 12 years. Narrating this aspect of her woes to SATURDAY PUNCH, she said, “My husband abandoned me for another woman because I could no longer bear him children. There was no reason why he should do this to me. I have never offended him. I treated him respectfully and gave him whatever he wanted.
“I reported the matter to members of his family. But what they told me was that having one child was not enough. So it was because I can’t get pregnant again.”
She said her husband had since married another woman and his relations were fully in support of his action.
At present, Bassey manages to scrape up a living by making hats for sale. But the proceeds, she confessed, were not sufficient to feed her and buy the drugs she needed to maintain herself. Even she is unable to afford her usual GNLD health products any longer because of their rising cost.
These days, in addition to the fact that the naval authorities have not bothered to review her condition since the journey to Isreal in 2004, the manner with which her husband abandoned her serves as a constant reminder of her painful experience.
She says, “There is neither joy nor peace in my heart as a result of what I have suffered. I am rejected and abandoned by those that have been helping me financially because they are all tired.
“On the strength of this hopeless situation, I sincerely want to appeal to Nigerians to come to my rescue. Don’t let me die when it is not my time. “I’m also looking for business or a good job to do for a living as I am now left at the mercy of fending for myself all alone.”
When he was contacted by SATURDAY PUNCH, the Director of Information, Nigerian Navy, Capt. Aliyu Kabir, confirmed that a case of professional negligence by a navy doctor was reported by Mrs. Bassey in 1999.
He said, “The doctor faced a court martial and was demoted from a navy captain to commander. Finally, he was retired. It is on record that Bassey’s condition was reviewed by a team of medical experts at Assuta Hospital, Israel, with no pathological findings and the Nigerian Navy paid all the medical bills that she incurred.”
Kabir said that since the Navy had taken responsibility for Bassey’s medical bills in Israel, she was not entitled to any financial benefit.
| Posted: at | |
TRENDING GISTS 
Rivers Police Bust Notorious Gangs Who Specialize In Kidnapping & Raping Young Women
Actor Femi Adebayo Wins N25m Suit Over Film Piracy After Three Years Of Battle
40 Year Old Father of 12 Found Dead in a Brothel in Bayelsa State
BREAKING! Most Wanted Oyo State Transport Union Leader, Auxilliary Arrested by DSS
Singer Tuface' Baby Mama Pero Adeniyi Praises Her Lover For Changing Her Life
VIDEO; Singer, Rema Celebrates 24th Birthday In Style In Los Angeles
Celebrities, Fans Celebrate Actor, Junior Pope’s Posthumous Birthday