JUST yesterday, February 2, 2022, a young man was robbed along Badagry Expressway and was shot in the legs. A report from Vanguard news claims that operatives attached to the Ijanikin Division of the police force refused to give a police report still required by many hospitals to the victim of the robbery attack.
The victim was luckily not bleeding profusely from the gunshots injuries on his legs so he survived this ordeal despite delays from obstinate police officers, and a hospital. The private hospital the victim was initially taken to at Cele bus stop refused to treat him because there was no police report available. An eye witness said that the young man had to be taken to Mowo on a motorcycle to get medical attention.
This is totally wrong and unacceptable. Wherever the idea of not treating gunshot victims came from, it does not help us at all. It is just absolutely wrong for a health care provider to leave a person in urgent need of help to die because of a report from a police force that does not guarantee the truth in the first place. Even suspects can be held at hospitals as they receive treatment. Why must our medical practitioners be made to disregard the lives they ought to help save?
Oddly, the Compulsory Treatment, and Care for Victims of Gunshot Act, 2017, was passed by President Muhammadu Buhari about five years ago. Yet, many hospitals still insist on getting a police report before they can admit or treat a person with bullet wounds. This act mandates compulsory treatment for people who have suffered gunshot wounds without a police report. The act guarantees emergency treatment of gunshot wounds pending confirmation of the circumstances surrounding the shooting.
But hospitals still refuse to treat Nigerians who are hurt by bullets until they can get our very efficient police officers to write a report about the circumstances surrounding the gunshot. Whether it's ignorance or unexplainable cruelty, this callous treatment of Nigerians must stop. The police has just a handful of tasks mostly summarise as the maintenance of law and order. When the police fails to protect citizens from criminal attacks, it shouldn't fail yet again in helping victims recover.
Hospitals must also take the initiative to care for persons who are in desperate need to live. Doctors cannot watch people die without even trying to save them, even if they are criminals. Judgement will come later, payment can be made afterwards, saving lives should be sacrosanct. For those who don't know, there are serious repercussions for breaking the Hippocratic Oath.
