Foul odour emanating from a decomposing corpse at the Accident and
Emergency Clinic, Orile-Agege General Hospital, Lagos, on Monday,
prevented medical workers from attending to patients at the clinic and
wards attached to it.
Patients were treated outside a large shed where new patients queued to
collect cards before they were eventually taken to different wards for
further attention.
When Punch visited the hospital on Monday morning, the doors of the
clinic, which is located close to the Pharmacy Unit, had been locked and
a male ward attendant in purple uniform was seen mopping the lobby with
disinfectant. The nurses evicted from their station were also seen
shouting at people not to open the door.
A patient who was relocated to the Surgery Ward said it took hospital officials more than two hours to evacuate the corpse.
“I came in here around 5am and there was no power supply at the time.
The generator was also not working at the time, but there was no odour. I
was already on a drip inside the ward when this foul odour hit the
ward. In a matter of minutes, we were all asked to leave the ward. My
drip was detached and condemned by the nurses.
“We were all taken outside and we sat on the benches by the Pharmacy
Unit. It took them more than two hours to decide what to do with the
corpse. I was later dispatched to the Surgery Ward, while others were
taken to the Casualty Ward,” he said.
When contacted, the Medical Director, Dr. Afusat Tijani, refused to talk
to Punch. “I am not allowed to talk to the press,” she simply said.
However, a source who did not want to be quoted because of civil service
rule said the corpse was ‘a coroner’s case.’ The source denied that the
corpse had been left unattended for three days.
“What happened was that the State Environmental Health Monitoring Unit
was supposed to have evacuated the corpse, but they said they did not
have fuel to get here. The corpse was a coroner case and there was
nothing we could have done. SEHMU only came to pick the corpse this
morning.
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