The family members of the late Dr Ameyo Adadevoh have said they are not happy with President Goodluck Jonathan for failing to commiserate with the family more than two weeks after she died in the line of duty.
The late Adadevoh, who was the first doctor to be claimed by the virus in Nigeria, got infected by the index case, the Liberian-American, Patrick Sawyer, at the First Consultants Hospital, Obalende, Lagos, where she attended to him and physically prevented him from leaving the hospital, at the risk of her own life.
Speaking with LEADERSHIP Weekend, the late Adadevoh’s uncle, Dr Andrew Omashogowa Mcintosh, who sobbed intermittently, said he was pained that the family had not received the right response from the president.
“Unfortunately, what is painful in my heart is because I have not seen the right response from our president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan. No right response from the federal government. I feel the pain in my heart when they now merely refer to Ameyo as the female dead doctor, a mere female dead doctor for that matter. What is wrong with this country? Instead of Jonathan coming to commiserate with us – look, if Ameyo had allowed Sawyer to run away, he would have disseminated Ebola to a lot of Nigerians and the spread would be out of control of the government. Sawyer would have thrown Nigeria into a pandemic situation and confusion. Federal Government officials now say she is a female dead doctor — no appreciation, no value; no, this should not be, not a female dead doctor,” he lamented.
The deceased’s uncle also berated the federal government for linking the late doctor’s death with the strike by doctors: “This is an occurrence unrelated with the doctors’ strike. Doctors’ strike is different from Ameyo’s death. They are not advising Jonathan enough. Doctors’ strike is a political problem; it is different from what Ameyo paid the supreme price for. This has to do with safety and security of Nigeria. She saved lives and it has nothing to do with politics. There is no reason whatsoever why President Jonathan should keep quiet about Ameyo’s case. He should be able to make a difference between these two things and come out to honour Ameyo. Ameyo needs to be honoured. A monument needs to be built to honour her. We should do the right thing for once.”
Mcintosh described the late Adadevoh as a no-nonsense person who was very passionate about, and knew her onions in, administering medical treatment to her patients. Her track record lends credence to this, he said, adding that from childhood she professed the love for medicine and nursed the dream of becoming a doctor to reality when she graduated from the School of Medicine, University of Lagos, and later went to England to specialise.
On the family front, the late Adadevoh was not found wanting. She was a pillar of support to both the immediate and extended family members. [eap_ad_1] How the family is coping with her demise
Ameyo was a unifying family symbol. She was our jewel of inestimable value. She was always there for the family. For example, when I was very sick from a serious scrotal hernia, I was looking for a doctor. I know one Dr Chibu Tutu, a surgeon; he had a very good clinic at Surulere area of Lagos. But I didn’t know he had moved from the location I knew the clinic. I lost contact with him. It was Ameyo that helped me to track him down. She took me to the new location. It was Ameyo that saved me from that condition in 2008. In the family, it was always Ameyo that came to regulate and settle petty problems. Whenever there was misunderstanding in the family, Ameyo would make sure it did not degenerate and while she was doing this, she would not tell you what she was doing. You would only see the results and if you went and investigated, you discovered it was Ameyo’s intervention. As caring as she was to everybody, she advised me to go and be a lecturer in UNILAG but I told her no, that if I went I would not have the space of time to research, that academic work would choke me up — and I was right.
