My Brother Fought For Life, The Country's Medical Facilities Killed Him - Ajoke
Ajoke Ashimi, final year student of the Department of Soil Science at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta has recounted how his brother died on Sunday.
"He was transferred to the UCH for a lung and brain surgery. The school placed a call to the UCH for an ambulance. When an ambulance didn’t come after a long wait, and we couldn’t use the FUNAAB ambulance, I had to go and pay for the FMC ambulance. After payment, I was told that the ambulance that had fuel had no oxygen and the one that had oxygen had no fuel. Eventually, they found one that had fuel and oxygen. Inside the ambulance, there were too oxygen cylinders; one was full and the other wasn’t.
"The one that was full was leaking while the other one would not be sufficient to sustain him till we got to Ibadan. In the midst of all those dramas, I paid for extra oxygen but rather than supply that, they decided to use the one that was half-filled without letting us know. I thought they carried the extra one I paid for but they didn’t.
"My dad even suggested that they should fix the leaking gas that the other one would not be enough but they didn’t listen to him.They chose to use an amble bag instead. When we got to the UCH, they didn’t attend to him on time despite the fact that we had called them ahead of our arrival. When the doctor came down and we talked to him, it was then that he saw that his breathe was weak that he rushed him into the emergency unit instead of an ICU unit.
"We requested oxygen because that was what he was using to breathe but they also didn’t have. By the time they saw one small one, he had died. My brother really fought for life but the poor state of the country’s medical facilities killed him...