“I was on call in National Hospital, Abuja. My consultants and I were on duty reviewing patients. All of a sudden, they rushed in a lady. Prior to that time, the woman had an issue with her first child – the child had spinal bifida (a disease of the spinal chord). Eventually, the child died. Now she was pregnant with her second baby and she went to some hospital to have the baby through CS.
After the operation had been carried out that she began to bleed profusely. That was when she was rushed to the National Hospital. We reviewed instantly – the woman was just bleeding. Immediately, she was given 2 pints of blood. Right there and then, my consultants asked that she be prepped for an emergency surgery.
Now the interesting thing was that this woman was the one who trained her husband through school. She sponsored him through school with the manageable money she was making till he graduated. The husband graduated and got a job at the Central Bank of Nigeria and things had just begun to look good for them. When he began to make so much money, he told the woman not to work anymore as a way to repay her for all the year of labour and sacrifice she made in his behalf.
We got to the theatre and we removed her uterus. Still the woman kept bleeding and we kept transfusing. We ended up transfusing 12 pints of blood and she was a bit stable. Later other consultants came in to review her case, consultants from Haematology department also came in to review the case to see if there was a blood disorder or something.
I have never been attached to a patient like that in all my years as a medical doctor. I would come around for ward-rounds, I’d see the woman and I’d share gist with her and crack jokes with her. Everything was good, she was getting better and I was happy, considering that I was there from that night when she was brought into the emergency room of the hospital, bleeding profusely.
I came into the hospital one morning and she was not on her bed. It was when I asked the nurses on duty where she was that I was told she had died in the night when I was gone. I was shocked. I decided to make my finding. I found out that she was rushed to the Intensive Care Unit, she had a cardiac arrest, they tried to resuscitate her but in the end, she died.
That day, I cried. I had been involved in her treatment from day one till she passed on.”
(Ibadan, 2019)
Infant, it is a painful story. May we not labor in vain as that woman did.
I always enjoy any story written on this platform. May God continue to strengthen you and bless the work of your hands. Thanks.