A pregnant woman and her unborn baby have died following the delay in transit by policemen, of the surgeon assigned to her.
The pregnant woman was in urgent need of surgery so the doctor, a female surgeon (name withheld) was called up to attend to her.
Despite the fact that the doctor herself was ill, she undertook to attend to the emergency which was scheduled at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH).
Unfortunately, she was held up for over an hour on Airport Road, Ikeja by policemen at a checkpoint. The police claimed she breached the COVID19Nigeria curfew. This was in spite of her pleas that she was rushing for an emergency.
She was eventually let go only to meet the lifeless body of her patient at the hospital.
According to an eyewitness:
“The doctor is a woman. In fact, she was also ill and was placed on drip at home when she was called for the emergency.
“Because her car was bad, she got a cabman to take her to the hospital. She left her house around 9:00pm
“Around 10:15pm, they got to the under bridge around Airport Road, where they met policemen. They had been stopped by other policemen before they got to that spot. But when she showed her ID, they allowed her pass.
“But these ones refused. After she showed one of them her ID and said she was on an emergency to see a patient who was between life and death, the policemen ordered the driver to park. He took her ID and asked her to prove she was on an emergency.
“She went to meet another member of the team and begged him that she needed to leave immediately and that the life of her patient was at risk. She was in nightgown and could not even change when she go the call. Unfortunately, the 2nd policemen shunned her.
The eyewitness added that the “the policeman said she was foolish and was a prostitute because a doctor would never dress the way she was dressed.
“She begged them and explained the circumstances but they refused to listen and demanded for the emergency letter.
Continuing, the eyewitness said that “there were 4 policemen on duty that night. Only one was in mufti. Their tags were not visible because they wore coveralls.
“They saw the drip on the doctor’s hand, she was risking her own life to save another person but alas, they never allowed her util it was too late.
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