Ebola: Rejected woman delivers twins on the street
As Ebola continues to strain medical facilities in Liberia, a 27-year-old pregnant woman who was turned down at the hospitals gave birth to a set of twins on the street in Paynesville city, while another rejected patient died.
Comfort Fayiah was turned away from a Liberian hospital in the wake of the Ebola virus disease, which has undermined the nation’s health system.
According to Reuters, Fayiah went on to deliver a set of twins on the streets, with passers-by providing the privacy and care that they could.
Nikita Forh, 21-year-old beauty queen and daughter of a Liberian lawmaker, was not as fortunate, as she lost her life in a battle against asthma, after being rejected from the hospital.
The doctors at John Fitzgerald Kennedy hospital in Monrovia were reported to have turned Forh away for not showing a certificate to prove she was not an Ebola patient. She died in her father’s Monrovia home.
The two women came from opposite ends of Liberian society – one a beauty queen and daughter of a prominent lawmaker, the other an ordinary home maker from a remote northern town.
The social difference between both ladies meant little in the face of the health emergency that Ebola constitutes in West Africa’s worst-hit nation.
Edward Forh, Nikita’s father, decried the attitude of health workers that resulted in the death of his daughter.
“My daughter died before my eyes like a dog. Those nurses killed my child,” he said, adding that he would sue the government.
More than 2,200 people have died in Liberia alone since the current outbreak of the Ebola virus disease.
Tears, Pains and Hopes –
In hopelessness, in fears, in deaths, God has never stopped being God.
That He lets us experience our nightmares; that He lets us walk into the agony of deaths; that our eyes are closed and our bodies return to dust – His glorious wonders have never seized to amaze us.
It is only in pains do we come to terms with life; it is only in death do we finally know the meaning of life.
Though we sop; though we weep; though we seek answers that we may never be found, His loving arms receive us when we finally become Him, in death and in life.
Martin Egbe