TheCable

The death of Dr. Stella Ameyo Adadevoh of First Consultants Hospital, Obalende, on August 19 opened a floodgate of tributes to a heroine who was hardly in the spotlight.

It is cheery to note the public recognition of her now-fatal role in preventing Patrick Sawyer from spreading Ebola to the rest of Lagos and Nigeria.

But in this interview with TheCable, septuagenarian Appolonia Osakwe who had several patient-doctor encounters with the late consultant, reveals that Adadevoh’s Ebola sacrifice was no one-off feat. She lived every day of her professional life for her patients.

Here is a breakdown of eight qualities that may or may not suffice to summarise Adadevoh’s relationship with her patients.

THE BEST DOCTOR IN THE WORLD

She was the best doctor in this world. She was the doctor for the poor, for the rich, for the young, in fact for the old – for everybody. I do not know the word to use. I just know that she is one of the best doctors that we have had in this world.

SHE TOOK AWAY THE PAINS OF HER PATIENTS

My first encounter with her was about 16 years ago when my grandchild fell sick; she was have running stomach, which we suspected to be malaria. So we took her to First Consultants Hospital.

While we were there, my grandchild was afraid of receiving injections. So this young doctor just walked in and said, “Children, what is the matter?” My grandchild said, “I don’t want to take injection”.

Dr. Adadevoh said “okay” and just dipped her hands in her pocket and brought out sweets. After giving my grandchild, she surprisingly just brought out her hand for injection and she was fine. You wouldn’t even know that she felt any pains, because of the way the doctor attended to her.

That shows you what I meant by saying that she was the doctor for the young, the old, the infant and all.

SHE DID HER JOB WITH BIG A CHEER

After that experience, my husband fell sick and we went to the hospital. My husband used to be the director of medical services at the Nigerian Railway Corporation. So he just retired and we were in our house and he said he needed to go to the hospital because he had constipation. We bought fruits and so on for him, but he insisted on going to the hospital.

My son suggested that we should fly him abroad, and we were even toying with the idea of taking him to Eko Hospital in Ikeja. But, finally, we went to First Consultants; and while we were there, trying to get doctors attend to him, Dr. Adadevoh just walked in a cheerful manner.

“Hello sir, hello ma,” she said. “How are you?”

She asked what we were there for. My husband wanted to stay for some time before the check-up, but the doctor said we should not worry and she assured us that all would be fine. She took care of him, checked his blood pressure, his temperature, in short general check-up.