BY TheCable
In an interview with THISDAY, reproduced below with permission, Benjamin Ohiaeri, the chief medical officer of First Consultants Medical Centre, speaks on his traumatic experience following the Ebola outbreak caused by a patient at his hospital, Patrick Sawyer.
THISDAY: Take us through the events of July 20th, 2014. At what point did that day change for you personally and as a hospital?
Ohiaeri: Mr. Sawyer came into the hospital at about 9pm that Sunday. He had apparently just landed from an international flight when he was brought in feeling unwell. He gave his history as a recurrent malaria patient, needing to be taken care of quickly as he was on his way to Calabar to attend an ECOWAS convention. He was immediately examined by the physician in charge, and basic blood work was done. Initial results from the basic tests showed that he had malaria and all other blood work was within normal limits. So he was commenced on malaria treatment and he was admitted for intravenous re-hydration.
By the following day, Mr Sawyer’s condition had worsened. He was now vomiting and was suffering acute diarrhoea. He also started to show haemorrhagic symptoms. There was a little blood in his urine and some blood patches in his eyes which moved beyond what we ordinarily see in a malaria patient. With these symptoms, the chief physician, Dr. Stella Adadevoh, triggered what we call an Incident Committee. The Incident Committee is the highest organ of our hospital management, and included Dr Adadevoh and Dr Abaniwo in their time. Dr Adadevoh triggered a Committee because the patient was presenting a peculiar and extraordinary set of symptoms, over and above the ordinary. The Incident Committee thereafter met daily until the Hospital was closed down. Dr Adadevoh having determined that the patient was presenting more than malaria symptoms, had spent the previous 24hrs reading up on the symptoms presented, determined to uncover where it was pointing to.
Dr Adadevoh made a detailed presentation to the Incident Committee detailing her findings in respect of the patient and advising committee members on her research findings. Dr Adadevoh had really done her homework which made clear that this was not a case of malaria and that it was much more than that. We knew it was an infectious haemorrhagic disease but had not figured out which one. The patient had informed us, after being questioned, that he had come from Liberia. The only confusion came when he denied any contact with Ebola victims. Also he did not come on a direct flight from Liberia. He had flown from Monrovia through Accra, then Lome, before arriving in Lagos. So there was a little bit of confusion at first but we held on to the fact that he said he was from Liberia. At the end of the day we were convinced that our chief physician was leading us in the right direction. So the Incident Committee then decided that we were going to elicit more information from him, through her, and we were now going to embark on doing the appropriate tests for Ebola. Our initial tests for malaria were the best that we could really do at that point.
We also decided to notify the patient of our plans as best practice dictates, that the patient must be fully informed of issues relating to his diagnosis and treatment. Sawyer was therefore fully informed about our plans to investigate the nature of his ailment, and advised that in light of the seriousness of the prognosis, he would not be able to leave the hospital pending full investigation.The first part of our notification seemed to go down well. He did not seem particularly troubled that we would be investigating the nature of his ailment with a view to eliminating Ebola as a possibility. He did not seem at all worried, upset or surprised by the fact that we were talking about or investigating for Ebola. When, however, we informed him that he would not be able to leave the hospital while tests were conducted, he lost it.
What do you mean he lost it?
Sawyer got very angry and nasty. He yanked off the intravenous line and spilled his blood all over the room in a fit of rage. He told us that he had every intention of leaving immediately because he had an important role to play at the Calabar ECOWAS convention and that arrangements had been made for him to be in Calabar.
As a responsible medical institution, faced with a serious and potentially calamitous medical situation, we had decided that we would not permit Mr Sawyer to exit this facility. Whatever damage his presence portended would have to be limited to the Hospital. We decided that we could not take the chance of a potential Ebola sufferer moving freely and randomly within the unsuspecting Nigerian population. Whatever it took, Sawyer had to be kept here.
We however understood the associated legal risks and therefore summoned our lawyers to advise us on this unusual situation. Based on legal advice, we felt able to keep Sawyer from leaving the hospital.
At this point, Dr. Adadevoh, and indeed the rest of us, were disturbed that the man was not behaving in a manner that you would expect from a reasonable man. A reasonable man would flinch when he is informed that he is going to be tested for Ebola. A reasonable man would want to know why the suspicion and what his chances of survival are and how he is going to be treated. A reasonable man would not say “I must leave the hospital now!” This was very strange to us because being an articulate forty year diplomat we expected some measure of intelligent conversation on this dreaded disease So, we could not understand why he was so desperate and determined to leave the Hospital when we were clearly trying to investigate his situation and find the way to treat his condition.
As if Sawyer’s behaviour were not bad enough, we soon began to receive irate calls from the Liberian Ambassador, Al Hassan Koike, who had apparently been contacted by Sawyer. The Ambassador repeatedly badgered Dr Adadevoh, ordering that Sawyer be permitted to leave the hospital and telling her that we had no authority or right to keep him. All of Dr. Adadevoh’s attempts to explain the situation, and my subsequent attempts to intervene, were shrugged off. The only thing the ambassador wanted was for Sawyer to be released, otherwise we would face charges of ‘kidnapping’. The threats were ratcheted up to the extent that he accused us of threatening an international diplomatic row, the consequences of which, he insisted, we would sorely regret.
As a thoroughbred professional, Dr Adadevoh remained firm and clear headed. She was however intimidated by the threats of law suits and diplomatic rows, etc. The situation for her and the rest of us got progressively unbearable. We were all very concerned about the threats. We didn’t set out to be charged with kidnapping, didn’t want the hospital embroiled in a diplomatic row and did not like the risks that faced us in the event that our diagnosis proved wrong. ‘What if we are wrong with our diagnosis’, we wondered. Yet, we all knew Dr. Adadevoh. She is thorough, incisive, competent and compassionate. After 21 years of working with a person, you know them. We trusted her – We trusted her judgement. Here was one situation where the risks to us of getting it wrong was disproportionately insignificant to the risks to Nigerians if we unleashed an Ebola patient on an unsuspecting public. No one would be able to curtail the fallout.
I took the phone from Dr. Adadevoh and tried to advise Ambassador Al Hassan Koike about our position, to assure him about our regard for the fundamental rights of Mr Sawyer, and to advise him of the risks to Sawyer and the general public of failure to properly manage a potential Ebola situation. The ambassador was having none of it.
In the end, we decided to act as our conscience and professional responsibility dictated; in the overall public good. We leaned on the one superior legal provision that supersedes a patient’s right to leave a hospital of his free will, i.e., the obligation to act for the greater good of the public.
In the meantime, Dr. Abaniwo, of his own volition, went to try to convince Mr. Sawyer to calm down and give the hospital the chance to make him better. Dr. Abaniwo is a deeply religious man who would have felt convicted to speak to Mr Sawyer – to ensure that he was alright. Sawyer seemed to calm down a little, but he then did something terrible, which caused Dr Abaniwo to contract Ebola. He asked Dr Abaniwo to check his eyes because his eyes had been previously injected. It is through this singular act of kindness that Dr. Abaniwo contracted the disease. Sadly, it took the confirmation of Dr Abaniwo as Ebola carrier for the fullness of his encounter to Mr Sawyer to be told.
Having stood our ground that the man was not going to leave the hospital, the next challenge was where to do the tests. We got to work, allocating tasks and responsibilities: Dr Adadevoh to contacting Lagos State, Dr. Abaniwo to take care of internal hospital matters, I was to engage with international colleagues and institutions to find help.
Lab tests needed to be done and at that time there was only one lab that we knew in Lagos that could test for Ebola. In the end, we were advised of the LUTH lab run by Professor Omilabu, and Redeemer’s lab run by Professor Tomori, both of which have the capacity to conduct interim tests. We sent a sample to the LUTH lab and 36 hours later received a result that showed a positive signal. At that point it was clear that hell was about to descend on Lagos. We felt compelled to issue a press statement, signed by Dr. Adadevoh and I, confirming that there now existed an Ebola index case in Nigeria.
With the press release, things went gaga. We had to progress our delicate investigations and patient management in the atmosphere of a media frenzy. Fortunately, our international contacts came through for us, putting us in swift direct contact with the Office of the US Secretary of Health, the W.H.O and the C.D.C. The US and UN machinery moved swiftly. One Dr Samuel Adeniyi-Jones, a Nigerian medical expert based in the US Secretary for Health’s office was extraordinary in the assistance he provided us. A matter of health and national security significance to Nigeria had attained national security significance to the US government and world health security significance to international agencies.
Do you sense then that Sawyer knew he had Ebola and deliberately or recklessly kept it from the hospital – or that he even deliberately set out to infect innocent medical personnel?
Who knows? The one thing that is certain is that his entire reaction was an aberration – at odds with how one would expect a reasonable man to behave when faced with such a significant health risk. At the beginning, it was a simple case of a Liberian-American requiring attention for a suspect case of malaria. As medical professionals, it was and is our duty to do all that we can to meet the patient’s needs. For us therefore, it was just odd that our every effort to help was rebuffed by the patient.
A matter that started as a medical issue escalated very quickly into a legal and a political situation, outside of the ordinary arena in which we operate as doctors. We could never have anticipated this. We could not have anticipated the threatened lawsuits and threatened diplomatic row. We could not have anticipated that we had a patient who almost certainly knew that he had Ebola. He must also have known that he was at his most dangerous stage. Yet, he wanted to get out of here. You have to reach the conclusion that the man was a bio-terrorist. All of a sudden we moved from a medical issue to a national security challenge and so we needed to reach out to all of the state and federal agencies.
You have to look at the implications of his actions. As a result of Sawyer’s bio-terrorism, seven people died in Nigeria. Out of the seven, four of them were from this hospital. Eighteen people were admitted to the treatment centre. 12 of them were from First Consultants. Those who were not in the treatment centre were traumatised beyond imagination, because they were now being monitored for days on end. Some of them were thrown out of their homes by their landlords and some of the spouses of the people working here had their employment terminated at their place of work. Sawyer’s actions had far reaching consequences for us at First Consultants and for Nigerians as a whole.
Tell us about your staff who died as a result of Sawyer’s action…
Dr. Adadevoh was the chief physician at First Consultants. She was the one that made the clinical diagnosis that triggered all of this. She had been working with us for 21 years and was killed by Mr. Sawyer’s bio-terrorism. She died in the course of protecting this nation, leaving a husband and a son. Dr. Abaniwo was our Chief Anaesthesiologist, having worked here for 16 years. He died leaving a wife and three children. Indeed his wife was secondarily infected and had to go for treatment and the children were traumatised. Justina Ejelonu was young, just under thirty and had been busy preparing to get married. She was two months pregnant. It was her first week working with us her when Sawyer inflicted the Ebola virus on her. Evelyn Uko had worked with us for 31 years. She was with me here when Dr. Adadevoh came here to deliver her son, Bankole, 26 years ago. Yes, I delivered Dr Adadevoh’s son. You see how personal these losses are. Uko was widowed as her husband died a few years ago leaving her to fend for four children. Those four children were kicked out of their home immediately the mother was diagnosed with Ebola before she eventually died. Evelyn Uko who was a nurse here. She was perhaps the sweetest and kindest bedside medic you can imagine.
So, you can see the strength of the relationship with the people that we lost. We built this hospital as a family institution and Sawyer came here to wreak so much havoc in our midst. He killed them one after the other by deliberately exposing them to his body fluids at every opportunity he had. With his knowledge of Ebola coming from Liberia, I believe that he knew exactly what he was doing. All this he did from the period he came in through to the period he was under suspicion and was placed in isolation. While in isolation, he found creative ways to get more of our staff infected. For instance, he called a nurse at one time but the nurse kept her distance from him then he decided to ask for someone else and told the nurse to call a doctor. The Doctor happened to be Ada Igonoh, one of the survivors. He begged Ada to hang up his drip bag as he said he had just finished using the restroom. He had systematically smeared the drip bag with his bodily fluids to ensure that she came in contact with it and that was how she got infected. Everyone who got infected has a similar kind of story to tell of Mr. Sawyer’s deliberate wickedness.
How would you classify the actions of the Liberian Ambassador? Do you think he knew about Sawyer’s Ebola status or that he was just trying to help his country man?
Well there have been many thoughts that have crossed my mind as to the role of the Liberian ambassador in trying to secure Sawyer’s release. There is no doubt in my mind that he was a reckless person because a diplomatic mission is supposed to have rules and there is only so much that they can interfere with. Did we tell him it was Ebola? Yes we did and what was his response to that? He asked us “how are you sure”. He accused us of just trying to disparage his country and embarrass Liberia. Even when the results were out and it was confirmed positive by W.H.O lab officials, he said he wanted to see the report. Of course by that time I didn’t have time for him anymore and I just disregarded his requests because I realised that this is someone that is unreasonable. He of course became a non-issue when President Goodluck Jonathan instructed the Minister of Foreign Affairs to come and talk to me when he heard about it. Once I relayed the full facts to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, he immediately fired up a letter of protest to the Liberian government that led to the recalling of the ambassador. It was clear that he had contravened diplomatic protocol and that he had acted in bad faith.
Were you prepared for any incident of this nature?
This Hospital is founded on and maintains a culture of excellence. The quality of our people, processes and equipment, all of these things matter to us. From our recruitment practices to our continuous training programmes, we are focussed on maintaining top notch medical personnel. We invest in up to date equipment and technologies. You have seen our recent investment in neonatal equipment. These are the things that matter to us. We do everything required to maintain international standard patient care. Indeed, we keep our knowledge cutting edge by maintaining international contacts and relationships. We are a research oriented institution, a learning zone and Dr Adadevoh was lead researcher in this regard. Knowledge is key to patient care and we maintain our international relationships, with colleagues and international agencies. Through these relationships, we stay ahead of developments in the medical field. So, yes, we are generally prepared for practically any medical situation that walks through our doors.
I must tell you however that July 20 2014 presented a challenge that we had never seen before or planned for. We had not planned for Ebola. No one had really. We certainly had never been presented with Ebola before. Fortunately, the high professionalism of our personnel, starting with Dr Adadevoh, who took time to examine the patient, research his condition, share her findings with us, work with us to investigate and test, all proved invaluable in containing Mr Sawyer and the disease. So, yes, as an institution, we had the calibre of personnel and tools to address a vast array of infectious diseases but nothing at this level. For instance we always had our own Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) but it wasn’t at the level of Hazmat gear which is the ultimate in protection gear.
Dr. Adadevoh, was one of the most brilliant physicians this country has ever produced. She always asked for the latest infrastructure and was always research oriented. Any medical course anywhere she will come and say “Oga there is something happening in South Africa and I want to go and do this course” and off she went. She attended various medical courses all over the world. As professionals, we always equip ourselves with new research orientations and best practices. Of course medical conferences help to build up knowledge, professional relationships and contacts – all of which proved invaluable when this Ebola crisis hit our hospital. We depended a lot and benefitted from our international relationships.
The key here, which is something we recommend, is that every institution must have a set of triggers where if a problem crosses a threshold you must call up an incident group of your peers – to come together, listen to a presentation of the problem and engage in professional arguments in a disciplined and structured manner so that you are able to determine what to do next. The problem here would have been magnified if we had let Mr. Sawyer out of here. We knew the best thing to do was to keep him here and ensure we put on our PPE’s. However, what was unique about Mr. Sawyer’s condition was that Mr. Sawyer did not want to be treated and he wanted to be a terrorist and go out of his way to infect other people. Ordinary patients don’t do that. It’s bad enough taking care of Ebola and trying to bring in other people to assist. Ebola victims all over the world are begging ‘please come and help me’. But Mr. Sawyer didn’t want to be helped.
How would you have handled the situation if Mr. Sawyer had admitted from the beginning his contact with Ebola?
Oh, we would immediately have quarantined him, summoned the assistance of the health and law enforcement agencies and reached out, as we did, to international professionals and agencies with extensive experience of handling Ebola. Ebola is a threat to the life of the patient. It is also a national security threat. We would have maintained the same care-based attitude to Mr Sawyer, doing everything possible to save his life, doing everything necessary to avoid the spread of the disease to our staff and the wider population. Imagine what would have happened if we let Mr. Sawyer out on the streets. It would have affected the economic, political and social fabric of this country. It would have been chaos. So yes, we would have summoned care for him as we did but taken additional care to avoid the danger that he constituted to our personnel.
From your experience do you think the country is better prepared in case there is any other outbreak?
Let me answer by saying for the country to be better prepared, the country needs to engage us at First Consultants in a very robust discussion. We were in the thick of it and suffered the most from the crisis. So the questions that need to be asked are, how did we survive it and what are the lessons that we have learned that could be shared. How can you be better prepared if you don’t do a post mortem that involves the people that went through it. You can’t. So for us to be beating our chest and saying that we’ve gotten a W.H.O this and that for me I find it very worrisome and I think that we should soon get engaged in some kind of a robust internal conversation. It is only in that process perhaps that the nation would appreciate it took First Consultants and its people. What we suffered. We are still waiting to be called upon to be part of such a process. We need to go forward with a better preparedness plan. We are only as strong as our weakest link.
There is no doubt that a lot of things came together to make this work. The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria signed a National Emergency Order which was timely and effective in coordinating the activities of diverse law enforcement and health agencies. What he did was to empower an Ebola crisis group comprising of the state, federal and international agencies. It empowered them and gave them the tools and assets of national security which they used quite effectively in contact tracing. For example, a lot of the people who they needed to contact trace ran away because of the stigma and the only way to track them was to use the executive powers of the law signed by the president. Then at the state level, the Governor of Lagos hurried back from the Hajj to take control of efforts to establish the treatment centre, ensuring that it was kitted out and upgraded as was required. The Commissioner of Health for Lagos also hurried back from an assignment to help. So there was the sense of urgency from the state government. Of course the Health Minister participated by sending public health and CDC officials to Lagos. The coordinator for First Consultants in this whole process was Dr. Adadevoh. She provided a detailed list of contacts and gave to the contact group. She distributed thermometers and charts. We worked with the Contact Group and the Executive Crisis Group in maintaining contact with our international associates that we have been working with in providing guidelines, standards and methods for the disposal of bodies, the next steps, best practices. WHO sent their best chief technical officer to Nigeria to begin the full decontamination of first consultants. It was done by W.H.O using our international network. From the office of the Secretary of Health in the US, to the CDC in Atlanta, to the WHO regional office and labs all worked together to decontaminate First consultants as a ground zero of this Ebola crisis in Nigeria. We were all right here in this office making sure that whatever had to be done was being done.
This Hospital and its people did everything that we could to stop Ebola spreading beyond our walls. There is no question about that. We leveraged all of the relationships we have developed over the years. When we made contact with the office of the Secretary of Health of the US government, they yielded without complaint and helped in every way that we requested. They did everything that they could to help us.. We will always be grateful to them. We notified the Association of Nigerian Physicians of America and two of their leaders, the past leader Dr. Mike Etomi, the present leader Dr. Nkem Chukwumerije and the whole group rallied round us. They were pushing all kinds of buttons to ensure that we got the best advice possible. You’ll be surprised to know now that within the group of doctors taking care of the two Americans at the Emory hospital, there was a Nigerian who is one of the senior members. What I did everyday was to talk to all of my staff that were inside the treatment centre by phone, then take notes of their symptoms. I communicated these to the group taking care of these two Americans. What we learned in the process is tremendous because they were able to break down what they were doing at a high tech level into a low tech level. I am sure that the advice they gave us was helpful to us in saving a few more lives. So you can see how Nigerians both at home and abroad were very helpful.
What has this crisis cost you financially and socially?
Let me start by saying the most important equipment in a hospital are the people. No institution should ever lose the volume and calibre of personnel that we did. It has been a huge loss to us. Then we have the people that are traumatised. Here you have the pictures of the equipment that were taken away for destruction because of contact with Sawyer – lab equipment, monitoring equipment, cleaning equipment, nursing equipment, emergency room equipment, laundry equipment. etc. A substantial amount of equipment and material was destroyed. Our plumbing work was pulled down and relayed too. We were shut down for over two months but still had to pay wages and meet other obligations, including to families of victims of Ebola. It has been tough.
How have you coped financially and has any arm of government come to your rescue?
The cost to us has been tremendous really. The cost in people is beyond bearable. We have suffered financially too and are only surviving today through the generosity of friends – through the goodness of institutions that appreciate that we took a heavy hit to our finances and reputation for the public good. The first person to come to our rescue was Mr. Atedo Peterside. We are indebted to him. The next was Seplat’s A.B.C Orjiakor, Channels Television, Tunde Ayeni, Diamond Bank. There are a few others. These people have been there for us. We are grateful to them for helping to keep this hospital open, to do what we do best – treat patients. We have not received any government support yet though we are aware that the Lagos State government has made a significant pledge. We know that the Governor will honour the pledge. Governor Fashola is a true gentleman. He has visited us here. He has received survivors in his office. He has been compassionate towards us, showing understanding of our plight.
Can you put a figure on what you have lost in financial terms and the toll it is taking even up till now?
How do we put a figure on the lives of some of Nigeria’s most competent, professional, disciplined and committed medical personnel? How do we quantify the losses suffered as a result of over two months of being shut down from operations? No patient walked through our doors for over two months, yet we continued to pay salaries and other operating costs. How do we quantify the stigmatisation that has continued to keep people away from here. This was a very busy facility, right in the heart of Lagos. You can see yourself how quiet it is. We are less than 10% the strength of our business before Patrick Sawyer. This is why we are happy to talk to people like you because you have a role to play in the whole de-stigmatisation process. Once you realise that what we did we did for you and for everybody, you will be in a better position to encourage government, corporate bodies and people of goodwill to support us. The press have a big role to play in ensuring that we don’t continue to suffer from the stigma – that we don’t continue to suffer simply for acting in the overall best interests of Nigerians.
The awareness of Ebola that was created was created because we raised the alarm. Now the role that the media must play is to make sure that government does not forget our role. There is a role that we also must play ourselves but we cannot do so without the help of government and we are looking forward to the help that I think we should have. There is a very important aspect here that must never be over looked: How this hospital is treated will undoubtedly define how other hospitals respond to similar incidents in the future.
If you or your brethren were to have a clinic somewhere and they were to have a patient they were to suspect to be an Ebola patient how they would react is a product of how they perceive the government and how the government is treating First Consultants. If they see and believe that First Consultants is not treated well and that we have not been properly accommodated, respected, de-stigmatized and compensated, your guess is as good as mine as to how they would respond to any serious infectious disease patient in the future.
We must do everything necessary to ensure that hospitals do not turn Ebola patients unto our streets. We must not do anything that will force hospitals to look inwards and protect their business and their people at the expense of the wider population. All of this depends on how First Consultants is seen to be treated.
On October 20th Nigeria was certified Ebola free and it was marked with a lot of fanfare in Abuja. We noticed that you were not there and you did not have a representative at the event. Why were you absent from such an important celebration?
We were not invited.
Why where you not invited?
Somebody forgot, I suppose. We don’t know really. Only the Ministry of Health can answer that one. What is however important is the need to collate lessons learned. To develop a Protocol for handling any other similar outbreak in the future. Also, for us, honouring those who died is a critical issue. We must not abandon our fallen heroes. We must also remember to honour those who suffered but survived. Until we honour those who died and those who survived, any celebration is undeserving.
This definitely would count as the most traumatic experience of your professional career tell me how this has affected you personally?
I am not as young as I once was. We had been planning the handover of the baton of Chief Medical Director to Dr Adadevoh. I was due to retire into academia early next year. This whole experience has been traumatic.
And did you for a moment fear that you may have gotten infected indirectly somehow bearing in mind your other doctors and nurses fell victims of Sawyer’s Ebola?
The only question was and remains how to preserve the lives of my team who are universally younger than me. They all deserve to outlive me. My fear and pain has been for them. They are my staff, my people. They are family. I am grateful for those who made it past this killer disease, even as I grieve over those that we lost.
Do you think the Nigerian government has appreciated the role played by First Consultants hospital enough to prevent the spread of Ebola in Nigeria?
That is not important. What is important is that we get a chance to share our experiences. That we develop a best practice protocol. That we work collaboratively to learn from First Consultant’s encounter with this dreaded disease and develop measures to avoid and or contain any future invasion.
Have your infected staff who conquered the disease resumed work?
Yes. Our people are all back at work, doing what they do best, attending to and caring for patients.
Why haven’t you thought of filing legal action against the Liberian government considering the Sawyer was under quarantine but slipped through and travelled. Added to that, is the role played by the country’s Ambassador?
We are doctors not lawyers. We care for patients, not litigate against them or governments. We are a caring profession. That is all we do. That is all we know how to do.
What role did the Nigerian Medical Association play in assisting in the heat of the Ebola crisis? I notice that you keep referring to foreign help?
Forgive me, I referred to foreign help only to describe the Ebola experience that they shared with us. Local medical personnel have been awesome in helping at the treatment centres. They volunteered in big numbers to assist, at risk to their own health and lives. Paradoxically, it is the carers, the medical professionals, that have borne the brunt of this dreaded disease.
Why haven’t you demanded compensation from Nigerian government for your staff who lost their lives to Sawyer’s Ebola or are you going to do that at some point in the future even if it means resorting to legal action?
There is no cause for legal action. What we did we did for the public good. Sooner or later, the government will acknowledge the sacrifices of our people – those who died and those who survived. Sooner or later, the government will attend to the losses that we have endured and continue to endure as an institution. We will ultimately be acknowledged for our small role in saving thousands of Nigerian lives – actions which burnished the local and international image of our beloved country. The government will recognise our sacrifice. I have already told you of the pledge by the Lagos State Government. We believe that the entire machinery of government will eventually play a part in acknowledging and compensating our huge losses. We are hopeful and expectant.
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