Mr Chibisi Ohakah spent gruelling 57 hours at the Intensive Care Centre of the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, UATH, Gwagwalada between April 13 and 15 as a coronavirus suspect case in what eventually turned out as a dramatisation of the ‘Nigerian factor.’
Ohakah sent his son to buy a mosquito repellent Sunday, April 12 night and turned in for the night. Little did he know he would wake up the next day to be mistaken as a coronavirus carrier to be subjected to rather dramatic screening in UATH.
Ohakah, an Orient Weekend senior correspondent, told this paper exclusively that he woke up early the following day coughing uncontrollably, no thanks to the mosquito repellent his son bought and which was lit in the apartment after he had slept off the previous night. According to him, smoke from the repellent had filled his lungs forcing him to gasp for breath and cough wildly.
As a result, relatives and neighbours, understandably, mistook the signs as those of COVID-19 and immediately rushed him to a medical facility.
Ohakah recalled the dramatic incident that landed him in a COVID-19 isolation ward:
“About 1.30 am, I noticed I was choking, trying to breath and coughing repeatedly. I was alone in my room, so I picked my phone and started calling my close friends. By 4am, two of them had arrived my house, one of them a medical doctor.
“The doctor later suggested calling the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) first. I protested that insinuation of coronavirus. Before I could say anything, he had called them. The NCDC operatives preferred interviewing me on phone to coming to pick me even with my friend being a medical doctor. After a 10-minute call, they promised to call back but never did.”
According to Ohakah, they eventually reached the hospital at Gwagwalada “about 5.10am. It took a very long time of haggling and negotiation before the hospital authorities agreed to take me in. They claimed that they only entertained accident and emergency patients. By 5.50am I had been assigned a room and bed. The manner people gave way for me to pass in the room made me think the hospital staff were courteous. But, as I made to sit on the bed, I could see that the very chair I used while I waited at the walkway was being washed as if it fell into corrosive dirt. The guy was literally scrubbing the chair with soap and sanitiser.
“It struck me I was obviously a suspect coronavirus patient in the eyes of the hospital staff. No wonder the doctors cleared for me to pass into the room.”
“I tried to shut the door to my room but the hospital security officer, from far off outside, told me he was under instruction not allow that. In fact, I noticed that he had positioned his chair for a full view of my bed from outside. Jeeez! Not long after, I came out of the room and told him I needed to urinate, but he refused. ‘Sorry Sir, we are under instruction not to allow you anywhere. Let me bring a container for you to urinate’, he said. I could not believe my ears. Quietly, I turned and went back to my room.
“My mind went wild with thoughts. ‘What is happening? Am I truly a coronavirus patient? I wondered: when did the diagnosis take place? Up to five hours since my arrival, no breakfast, no blood pressure check, no bath, no attention, nothing.’ I sat alone in my room. My thoughts returned to my choking breath. ‘Why would these people not attend to my choking breath? What if my heart knocks its last beat?’ I dozed off.
“I checked my handset; it was 7. 30pm. I must have slept for long. I was now filled with rage. I called the security man and asked the way to the doctors’ room. He said he could call them for me. Not seeing anybody at about 8.30pm, I called two medical doctors that I knew worked there, though they were not on duty. I practically threatened that if I didn’t get attention immediately, I would walk through the hospital door and take the next bike ride away. They both pleaded and promised that someone would come to attend to me.”
Arrival of masked personnel
After hours of wait, Ohakah said medical officials fully geared in their personal protective equipment, PPE, eventually arrived to attend to him, an encounter turned out more dramatic than expected.
Hear him: “It was not quite ten minutes, thereafter, that I heard a shuffle sound, as someone was raking heap of dry leaves under a cocoa tree. It was rhythmical, so I suspected it must be a human being approaching my door. The all-white, masquerade-looking human being appeared in the doorway. He appeared to be afraid, then he asked if I was Ohakah. I nodded. He said I should calm down, that he was there to help me.
“He asked for my story and I told him. He asked if I had recent travel history, interaction with someone that I suspected, travelled from another state to Abuja recently. I said ‘no’ to all the questions saying it was only the choking breath, cough and catarrh that bothered me. He inserted a hypodermic needle behind my palm and took a blood sample away.
“At 1.30am, I heard the shuffle again. One ‘masquerade’, then another; both female doctors. They introduced themselves and advised me, once again, to be calm. They said they needed to take my blood sample. ‘Are you people going to finish my blood? Your colleague took two quantities from me last night,’ I retorted. They assured me the taken samples were for different purposes. After four failed attempts to check my blood pressure, the ladies left me. They said my bicep was bigger than the wrap-round. I asked about the one used by the first doctor. They said it belonged to him and he left the hospital after observing me.
“When I complained about their not coming often to see me, and doing nothing so far other than check blood pressure and take blood samples, one laughed, ‘Oga you should thank God we came. We are not the only ones on duty. Many of us are being careful. Nobody wants to risk his life. Many have gone; all their families heard was just ‘Sorry.’ You have to be grateful that we agreed to come’
It was then I realised that I was indeed ‘lucky.’ They left.
He went further: “The emptiness continued the next day, Tuesday, April 14. At about 4pm, I heard the foot shuffle again. I also heard noise of visitors and hospital staff being asked to leave from 15 meters radius to my room entrance. Three ‘masquerades’ walked in. As now usual, they asked about my story. I was wondering why my story should not be told just once.
“In addition to checking my blood pressure, this set of the ‘masquerades’ did something else. One of them brought out something that looked like a shiny, bicycle spoke. He drove it into my nostril as if he sought to gauge the basemen of my eyes. It was very painful. He pleaded that I should not cough.
“Then he came again, this time with another shiny spoke. He told me he was going to drive it into my throat and, again, pleaded that I should not cough. Unfortunately, I did. He abandoned me and flew up like a cock hit by an unknown pebble. He landed outside the room. His colleagues sprayed and literally bathed him with sanitiser. After two other attempts he took the sample from my throat and left.
“The waiting continued until night, in the second day. I had not taken my birth because the hospital security man would not let me go anywhere. I did not talk about food because I was not hungry. I imagined; was this Nigeria’s understanding of isolation and quarantine? What hell did I walk into?
The reprieve:
Ohakah eventually got the best news of his life after 48 hours of waiting game at the centre. He recalled: “It was Wednesday, yet no news of my result. I guess the information had come that there was nothing wrong with me. At about 2pm, one of the doctors came, now without the masquerade regalia, and informed me that I had been discharged. He gave me a list of drugs to buy in view of my choking breath.
“I asked about the result from the NCDC but he said the people responsible were not ready with it. And that I would be contacted if it was positive. ‘So, I am no longer a Covid-19 patient?’, I asked the doctor.
He smiled, ‘But I just told you: the result is not yet out. Whether it is positive of negative, we shall contact you. We have your contacts. Sorry for all the inconvenience.’
Shortly after securing his freedom, Ohakah, looking dirty, emaciated and sad, gathered the last gasp of energy in his system, walked out of the facility and headed home, thanking God for surviving a journey that over 170,000 people did not return from since the turn of the year.
He, however, expressed regrets that the fight against COVID-19 in Nigeria had been marred by what he called the Nigerian factor, a development that had resulted in loss of lives.
Said he, “It is easy to think that Nigeria, as a country, is doing well enough in the fight against coronavirus – through the huge sums donated internally and international organisations and the hype on conventional and social media. But it is sad to note that Covid-19 may linger for a very long time because of the phrase a medical doctor at the UATH used – the Nigerian factor”.
“The doctor had come to take my blood pressure. Unfortunately, the device was faulty as the wrap-round of the equipment could not go round my bicep. From her hiss and evident frustration, the device was the only available one for use that night.
“What is happening? I thought this was a university teaching hospital; one in the nation’s capital for that matter?” My questions went in torrents. I heard the mutter, from under the mask, something like ‘This is Nigeria for you’.
I remembered my journalist cap, and put it on, and started deducing from observations; making mental notes from queries I made to look very ordinary
“I thought they said this hospital was a Covid-19 Centre?”, I asked.
“So we heard, too,” was the answer, resignedly thrown at me with eyes turned towards the colleague as if to ask, ‘Did you hear that question?’ Both laughed.
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