I Pity Nigeria!: Our Failure to Plan and the Cheapening of Lives -By Soyombo Ayomikun

Soyombo Ayomikun

It all started as a normal day. I resumed at work and my patients started coming around for consultations just like any other day. Eventually I went for break.

Shortly after the break-time I got an emergency call – it was from an accident scene close to the gate of my work place involving a burning truck and a fully loaded commercial bus. Together with the matron, we rushed to the scene, and what we met was chaos, which was almost overwhelming for just two healthcare givers. There was hysteria, confusion, shock and fear all around.

We started the rescue effort by quickly extricating the victims from the scene. A total of nine victims were rescued by our team, all with various degrees of burns ranging from the 2nd to 3rd and 4th degree burns, and coupled with multiple fractures and lacerations. Some bodies were already burnt beyond redemption, so we had to sadly carry out the resuscitations leaving them behind.

With the huge number of patients, I knew more hands would be needed in their resuscitation and stabilisation. I also knew, from on-site assessment, that the number may overwhelm a single private hospital, but then all the state-owned hospitals have been on strike. So, I called a senior colleague who owns a private hospital to inform him of what to be expecting.

On getting to his hospital, we started resuscitation after triaging the patients. We lost one of the patients in less than an hour after the resuscitation efforts began. It was painful!

I am writing this about 12 hours after the ordeal and the only thing I can think of is how much I pity Nigeria.

I pity Nigeria because our livelihoods are predicated on a system that is laden with dangers; poor social infrastructure (roads, hospitals, schools, cars and homes); poor health policies; and a poorly trained citizenry (both the uneducated and the educated ones), etc.

I pity Nigeria because such an accident wasn’t the first, definitely won’t be the last, and most likely we won’t be able to prevent the next one.

I pity Nigeria as ours is a society where citizens lack the basic understanding of the ‘Chain of Survival’ when it comes to being part of the management of emergency cases involving human casualties; of how out of the zeal to rescue victims, cases are further complicated at accident scenes; of how most times we are usually our own poison due to ignorance.

I pity Nigeria because I can’t just fathom how a country this big won’t have a functional National Emergency Preparedness Algorithm; why all the major highways in the country can’t have functional and well-equipped trauma centres rendering the best of care to people; why the medical personnel in the country are getting poorly treated, leading to their migration out of the country with subsequent great demands on those staying back; why we simply don’t value life with our actions although we proclaim otherwise with our mouths.

I pity Nigeria because most of the disasters we end up tagging as ‘accidents’ are actually not so, because our systems have prepared everything to make them happen, and its just that most times we simply don’t know when the next one would be. And when they finally happen we begin to act surprised, which is the ironic confusion of our reality!

My recommendations to the government are simple:

1. There’s need for a National Emergency Preparedness Algorithm (NEPA);

2. The necessity for proper communication of the algorithm to the populace;

3. The adequate training of all Nigerians on the principles of Basic Life Support;

4. The establishment of more adequately equipped trauma centres on major highways in the country by either the government or private institutions, or by concerted government-private partnerships;

5. The standardisation of the Emergency Response System in the country.

As I write this, the smell of burnt flesh is still so thick in my brain, and the cries of a mother screaming for a child we couldn’t even immediately find at the scene of the accident is clouding my reasoning. Equally, tears from the casualties who knew their lives have changed forever as they may never walk again is still obscuring my vision, and knowing another brutal accident will happen very soon is filling me with sadness.

I pity Nigeria!

Soyombo Ayomikun, a Medical Doctor, tweets from @alabaster85.