Fallen Heroes: How The Health Workers Who Treated Patrick Sawyer Saved Us All

Nigerians owe a debt of gratitude to the nurses and doctors who did everything to keep Patrick Sawyer confined

A 25-year-old nurse who treated Ebola-infected Liberian-American, Patrick Sawyer died yesterday bringing to 3 the number of Nigerians who have lost their lives to the disease.

Sawyer collapsed at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos and was taken to the First Consultant Hospital in Obalende where he was diagnosed of Ebola.

Reports have it that despite being informed of his condition, he was determined to proceed to Calabar where he was due to attend an ECOWAS conference.

However, the nurses and doctors of the First Consultant Hospital kept him behind their doors despite the fact that he urinated on them and sprayed blood on his hospital bed, essentially exposing them to infection.

The hospital workers continued to treat him and they didn't turn him away like some hospitals have been doing to persons suspected of having the disease.

A number of the workers at the hospital have been infected due to contact with Sawyer and 2 of them, including young nurse, Obi Justina Ejelonu are now dead. Jatto Abdulqudir, an ECOWAS protocol officer who attended to him is also dead. If he had been allowed to go to the conference in Calabar, he would have caused a nationwide contagion.

 

The management of and workers at the First Consultant Hospital are heroes and they saved us all.

May the souls of the departed rest in perfect peace.