Enemuo, the medical director of Sam-Steel Clinic, Rumuokoro, Port Harcourt, died on Friday, August 22, 2014, at the Good Heart Hospital, GRA, Port Harcourt, and the result of samples taken from his body indicated that he died of the Ebola virus disease.No fewer than 100 persons including the wife of the deceased have been quarantined while the two hospitals and a hotel where the late Enemuo met with a staff of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), who is believed to have had contact with the index case, the late Liberian-American Dr Patrick Sawyer, have been closed down.The commissioner said, “We transferred her to Lagos for two reasons: she wanted to leave this zone and, second, we transferred her to enable us concentrate on tracking those who have had secondary contacts with Koye. There is a perfect synergy between the federal and the Rivers State governments on combating the disease in Lagos.”Addressing journalists in his office yesterday, Parker said the late Enemuo knew that Koye, who works with the ECOWAS was a carrier of the Ebola virus.Parker said: “He had received the late Dr Patrick Sawyer in Lagos. Upon developing the symptom, he confided in a female colleague called Lilian, who contacted the late Dr Enemuo. It was after contact was established with Dr Enemuo that Olu Ibikunle Koye flew to Port Harcourt to see Dr Enemuo.“To conceal his movement, Koye, who had been quarantined amongst other people for having primary contact with the late Sawyer, sneaked out of the isolation unit where he was being observed and took a flight to Port Harcourt and switched off his phone so that he could not be reached or traced should he answer a call.”On arrival in Port Harcourt, the commissioner for health revealed, Koye avoided being traced, checked into Mandate Gardens, a local hotel in the Rumunokoro area in Obio/Akpor local government area. The hotel is within the Rumunokoro area where Dr Enemuo’s private health facility, Sam Steel Clinic is located.“From what we have gathered so far, Dr Enemuo, knowing full well that Koye was positive of the Ebola virus, took some measure of precaution to protect himself while treating Koye. Knowing the enormity of what he was doing, Dr Enemuo, upon Koye’s departure for Lagos, poured bleach all over the room that Koye slept in order to sanitise the place.“Upon developing the Ebola symptom, Dr Enemuo approached one of our colleagues for treatment at Green Heart Hospital, along Evoh Road, in GRA. Dr Enemuo did not tell the doctor that was treating him the truth. He merely told him that he had a fever. He lied. He did not tell the doctor that was treating him his full story.“But the doctor, a nice and conscientious professional, suspected that Dr Enemuo was either hiding something or was suffering from a strange ailment because he proved negative to malaria fever and typhoid fever. To be sure of what he was doing, he spoke to other very experienced doctors about the strange case he was handling in his hospital.“He even invited some of his colleagues to come over to his hospital to study Dr Enemuo’s medical history. Of course, the news of the Ebola virus was all everywhere, so, they were afraid to go. None of them showed up at the hospital where Dr Enemuo was being treated. His condition continued to deteriorate and he eventually died and his body was taken to the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, UPTH.“When news got to Koye that the doctor that treated him in Port Harcourt had died, he collapsed. It was then he opened up and confessed that Dr Enemuo had treated him when he travelled to Port Harcourt. He confessed that he sneaked out of quarantine to Port Harcourt.”The commissioner for health stated that 60 more people who had secondary contact with Koye were quarantined last night bringing the total so far to 160, adding: “Our contact tracing team is working seriously to make sure we contain the spread of the Ebola virus in Rivers State.”
Health workers abandon duty posts over death of doctor
Health workers in the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH), Alakahia, near Port Harcourt, and their counterparts in the Braithwaite Memorial Specialist Hospital (BMSH), Port Harcourt, have abandoned their duty posts, for fear that the corpse of the medical doctor who died of Ebola virus disease (EVD), Dr Ikechukwu Sam Enemuo, may have been deposited in the morgue of one of the tertiary health institutions.Health workers, including mortuary attendants at the BMSH, which is a Rivers State government-owned health facility, became convinced that the corpse of the Ebola victim was not deposited at the hospital morgue, and they returned to work.
But that was not the case at the UPTH as the workers vowed not to return to their duty posts and criticized the hospital management for accepting the infected corpse without considering the welfare and safety of the workers and people in the hospital community.
A health worker in the hospital, who spoke to LEADERSHIP WEEKEND on the condition of anonymity, said, “Our concern is the mortuary staff are the first contacts with this corpse; what measures have been put in place for these first contacts of the corpse? That is our concern; that is what caused the panic and pandemonium in the hospital.“We are all afraid, all of us in this hospital. If I am infested, I can infest you. I don’t what to die, because I have not trained all my children. Please, I am appealing to the mortuary attendants, if you see any corpse outside, please don’t touch it. My own blame is on the management for hiding an issue like this from the staff.”A top official of the health workers’ union in the hospital, who pleaded anonymity, said they are demanding that the mortuary department be shut and all the mortuary attendants who had contact with the corpse of Enemuo be quarantined.She said, “Since the corpse is actually an Ebola victim, it means the mortuary should be closed down until we get very vital information concerning the corpse. The mortuary should be closed down and the mortuary attendants be quarantined.“The management is aware that the corpse is that of an Ebola victim, yet it accepted it. The people that are working in the mortuary, they don’t have anything to protect themselves.”Reacting to the development, the management of UPTH assured the health workers that there was no cause for alarm over the corpse of the victim of EVD, which was deposited in the morgue of the hospital.Chairman of the Medical Advisory Committee of the hospital Dr Charles Tobin-West told newsmen in Port Harcourt that the affected mortuary had been de-contaminated.Tobin-West said, “There are safety measures we have put in place. The morgue has been de-contaminated. We know that Ebola is contagious; Ebola can kill but fear kills faster. Pre-emptive measures have been taken to take care of the morgue.”Also, Rivers State governor Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi has appealed to the people not to panic over the outbreak of the dreaded Ebola in the state, saying that the state government is doing all it can to contain the spread of the virus.Amaechi, in a state-wide broadcast on Thursday evening, said officials from the Federal Ministry of Health and other international agencies were already in Port Harcourt, working with the state Ministry of Health to contain and combat the virus.
Uneasy calm in Rivers
However, despite assurances from the state government, there seems to be uneasy calm in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, and its environs following the death of the first confirmed Ebola victim in the state, Dr Enemuo.Residents of the state seem to be more careful now than before when they heard about the virus in Liberia, Sierra Leone and later Lagos, Nigeria.A visit to Sam-Steel Clinic, owned by the late Enemuo, located along the East-West Road in the Rumuokoro area of Port Harcourt, and the Good Heart Hospital, located along Evo Road, GRA, where the victim died, showed pictures of abandoned neighbourhood.Apart from officials of the Rivers State Ministry of Health, who were carrying out de-contamination of the two hospitals, residents of the two neigbbourhoods avoided getting close to the two locations.At the Mandate Garden Hotel, located along the Airport Road in Rumuodomaya, where the late Enemuo met with the Nigerian diplomat, Olu Ibikunle Koye, the strange look on the faces of the residents of the developing area shows a sign of people who are uncertain about what would befall them in a few days due to the outbreak of Ebola.
Rivers PDP, APC bicker over Ebola
Meanwhile, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) engaged each other in a war of words over who should be blamed for the spread of the Ebola virus disease into Rivers State.This is as the Trade Union Congress (TUC) has appealed to the people of the state, irrespective of political and religious affiliations, to join hands with the federal and state governments to ensure the successful containment of the Ebola disease in the state.The PDP had, in a statement, alleged that carelessness and insensitivity on the part of Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi and the state commissioner for health, Dr Sampson Parker, were responsible for the unfortunate spread of the deadly disease in the state.The statement, which was signed by Jerry Needam, media aide to the chairman of the PDP in the state, said Amaechi and Parker had not been proactive in putting in place necessary facilities and modalities for preventing the Ebola outbreak or tackling it to avoid spread in the event of any reported case.But the APC, in a swift reaction, described the attempt by the PDP to link the spread of the Ebola to the state to lack of plans by the state government to tackle the disease in the state as “another iniquitous propaganda”.A statement issued by the state publicity secretary of the APC, Chris Finebone, reads in part: “Ordinarily, the reaction of the APC would have been to ignore this satanic press release that defies all known decency and leaves a sour taste in the mouth. However, it is necessary that innocent people and residents of Rivers State must be protected now that the PDP has decided to take their propaganda to the arena of infamy, employing the circumstances of a deadly disease that has become of concern to Nigeria and the whole world.“The truth remains that prior to the sad discovery of an Ebola death of a medical doctor in Port Harcourt who treated another victim who came into the state from Lagos and the possible infection of those who had contact with the doctor, the Rivers State commissioner for health had, as recent as last Wednesday, briefed the public about efforts being put in place to contain the disease should it occur in Rivers State.“A special medical centre has already been designated for the purpose while local and expatriate specialists are already on ground to train local healthcare personnel on the treatment and handling of EVD patients, including the provision of all necessary personal protective equipment (PPE) for health personnel.”Meanwhile, in a statement issued in Port Harcourt yesterday and signed by the chairman of TUC in the state, Comrade Hyginus Chika Onuegbu, he urged the people of the state to be vigilant and follow the lawful instructions of federal and state health authorities.The statement reads in part: “The Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC), Rivers State, following the confirmation of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in Rivers State, appeals to all Rivers people irrespective of political and religious affiliations to join hands with the federal and Rivers State governments to ensure the successful containment of the fatal and highly contagious EVD in Rivers State.“We call on all our members and the ordinary people of Rivers State to be vigilant, follow the lawful instructions of federal and state health authorities, and report all suspected cases to the dedicated Ebola hotlines. We also call on all employers of labour to immediately educate their employees on the EVD and provide them with effective hand sanitizers and PPEs such as hand gloves etc as a minimum.“The outbreak of EVD has been declared as an international health emergency and it is important all hands are on deck to contain it in Rivers State to avoid any further loss of lives.”
No comments :
Post a Comment