He and his wife-to-be had lofty
dreams of living fulfilled lives and raising wonderful children together. The fiancée
was two months pregnant and their traditional marriage had been fixed for
October.
His fiancée, a graduate nurse,
had just secured a job at First Consultant Hospital, Lagos. He too also just
got a marketing job with an oil and gas company. She was reluctant to go to
work on the first day she was expected to resume on account of ‘morning
sickness’ (pregnancy symptoms) and he encouraged her.
She did! Lo and behold, her first
duty and first patient to nurse on her first day at work was the late Patrick
Sawyer, the Liberian-American, who brought the deadly Ebola Virus Disease (EVD)
to Nigeria. And that decision put a full stop to the lofty dreams of a
promising family. Welcome to the world of Mr. Dennis Akagha, the husband-to-be
of late Miss Justina Ejelonu, the nurse, who contacted and died of the Ebola
disease from Mr. Sawyer....Continue reading after the break...
In an exclusive, explosive and passionate interview with Saturday Vanguard, Akagha, who contracted the disease from Miss Justina, was quarantined, treated, cured and discharged last week, spoke on how and why his fiancee died, how he contacted and survived the disease, how he was stigmatized and abandoned by co-workers and neighbours, and why victims must be given adequate care. He said perhaps, Justina would have survived with better care. Read on:
His
thoughts on Ebola and late Justina
The truth is that Justina and I were not
legally married, we were planning for our traditional marriage in October and
she just got this job. She was a qualified graduate nurse and got the job at
the First Consultant Hospital in Lagos. She resumed duty at the hospital on the
21st of July, while Patrick Sawyer was admitted at the hospital on the 20th.
He was her first patient. She was one of
the nurses that nursed him. She was pregnant and so her immune system was weak,
which made it easy for her to contract the disease. On that first day which was
a Monday, she was having some pregnancy symptoms, but I just encouraged her to
go because it was her first day at work. Sawyer was her first patient.
The next day, Tuesday, she didn’t work on
Sawyer. Wednesday and Thursday, she was off. Then on Friday, Patrick Sawyer
died. They didn’t know he had Ebola, it was three days later that they realized
it was Ebola.
It
was after Sawyer died that she told me she nursed him but that she was on
gloves. She even thanked God that she didn’t have direct contact with him. The
fever continued and we thought it was just pregnancy symptoms and even when she
went to her hospital, they confirmed the same thing. She took drugs and ran
tests, yet it persisted. At night, she was usually cold and feverish and her
body temperature was usually very high. At a point, I began to suspect that she
had contacted the virus. I did some research on the disease and realised that
she was having similar symptoms.
When
did you know that she had contacted the Ebola virus?
On the 14th of August, it became serious,
she started stooling and vomiting. I had to clean up everything. All of a
sudden, she started bleeding and she started crying that she had lost the
pregnancy. I had to call her relatives and other people. The bleeding persisted
and I had to clean up everything.
While
you were attending to her did you wear gloves?
Initially I was not wearing gloves
because I felt I had already been exposed to the virus. But later I cautioned
myself and started wearing nylon on my hands. But I couldn’t stay away from
her. I kept consoling her. Even when I took her to the hospital, she wanted to
hold me and I told her to also consider my safety. She managed to hold herself
and was able to find her way out in a pool of her blood. We chartered a taxi to
the hospital, but first, I took her to First Consultant Hospital because I felt
they should know more. When we got there, I was directed to IGH, Yaba. I told
the taxi driver to take us there. The driver wasn’t even aware of what was
going on as he took us to Yaba.
Justina was on the floor for 30 minutes
before she was attended to. She was screaming that she was going to die. She
was seriously bleeding, she had to come out of the taxi and lay on the floor. I
ran around, trying to get doctors to attend to her. After everything, they took
her in, took her blood samples and the following day, the result came out that
it was Ebola. They washed the taxi with chlorine and also bathed the taxi
driver and I with chlorine spray.
At that point, the taxi driver knew what
was going on, he couldn’t even take me home because he was so scared. I had to
look for somewhere to pass the night in the hospital. Early the next morning, I
left the Hospital. The taxi driver is alive today, nothing happened to him. We
have been checking on him and the last time we spoke he told me, he was fine.
So
what happened after you got exposed to the virus?
After that, what happened?14 days after I
was exposed to Ebola, my temperature rose from the usual 35.2 degrees
centigrade to 37.2. The Lagos State government gave me a thermometer the day I
dropped Justina off at the centre. It took them two straight weeks to visit my
home and to disinfect it. Before they came, I had already done the much I could
do. I used bleach and detergent to clean the whole house, furniture and clothes
inclusive.
We should be reminded and educated that a
healthy person with Ebola virus cannot get anybody infected, except if the
person is sick and totally down with the virus like what happened to Sawyer and
to my late wife-to-be, Justina. I contacted the virus because Justina was very
sick and I was taking care of her without any appropriate protection. When we
knew what we were dealing with it was almost too late for me as I had already
contacted the virus.
Since
you had already visited the centre what else was done for you by the state?
The Lagos State government sent health
professionals to check on me regularly to know how l was doing or if l had the
signs of the virus manifesting. So they used to come around to check on me. At
some point they created scenes with their visits. I was embarrassed and I was
stigmatized. I complained severely to them that I didn’t like what they were
doing. Then, one Saturday they visited again, I complained about the pains I
was beginning to experience; excruciating pains around my waist. I started
praying and asking people to pray for me.
Before
this time, I believed in the Holy Communion, so I usually take it daily and do
feet washing. I was going to the hospital daily to see late Justina. Initially,
I was seeing her through the window and she would say I should take her out of
the hospital. She complained of lack of care.
Perhaps, Justina would have survived the
virus, if not for the state she was in. Her immune system was down because she
was pregnant. Along the line, she had a miscarriage and lost the baby due to
the Ebola virus disease.
The doctors, who were supposed to do an
evacuation on her couldn’t do it because they claimed that an evacuation was
too risky as she was heavily infected and may pass on the virus to another
person.
Since nothing was done even after the
bleeding had stopped, it led to more complications for her because the already
dead foetus somehow got rotten in the womb and started a damaging process which
led to further complication. Meanwhile, she was still stooling and vomiting and
since nobody could dare to touch her, she was left on top of her excretions
even when she couldn’t do much for herself due to her weak state. She was given
her incisions and other drugs. I believe if
some people survived Justina should have been one of them. At
a point, I wished I was a doctor myself; I would have taken the risk of doing
the evacuation because it really affected her.
When
was the last day you saw Justina?
The
last day I saw her, I had to go inside the ward because she was so unkempt as
nobody attended to her. At that time, the quarantined patients were in the
former facility where there was no water and she had messed up herself again. I
had to look for water to clean her up, change her pampers and arrange her
bedding. Since I was aware of what I was dealing with, I got myself protected
while cleaning up the place. I made sure she looked better than when I saw her.
Justina was shivering the last day I saw her, one side of her stomach was
already swollen, and her legs were also swollen. I prayed for her. At
a point, she needed oxygen and the hospital couldn’t provide it. Her
friends had to provide it. That was the last day I saw her.
On Sunday Morning, I called her line like
I usually did before visiting her, but she didn’t pick her calls. When I got to
the hospital, I was told that she was dead.
Was
she taking your calls while she was at the facility?
Yes, in fact she called me that last day
and I knew she was going to give up, because she was saying some funny things.
She said I should tell my people to go and meet her father so as to finalize
our marriage plans, that she’s leaving that place.
From
what you have said, were you not scared that you may die as well from the
disease?
I personally don’t believe in taking
medications. I had the mentality that I wasn’t sick. I told the government what
I was experiencing. On the day they came to pick me up for treatment, all of a
sudden, my temperature went back to normal. The shivering and pains were all
gone. So they decided that they would be checking on me. But it got to a point
people stopped selling things to me. It was as if the government got a report
that I shouldn’t be around. So, they came and said I should go with them that
they wanted to take my blood sample. I went with them and they took my blood
sample, I was kept in a ward known as the ‘suspected ward.’
The result came out and it was positive.
I was then taken to a confined ward. One of the doctors from UNICEF, a white
lady told me that they were having issues with the results and that they would
have to re-run the tests. They did the tests again and it was still positive. I
told them that it wasn’t my result and that I was healthy. I was even doing my usual
exercises (press-ups) every morning. I kept telling them that I wasn’t sick.
They took my blood sample the third time. That night, they told me that I
tested negative in the last result and that I don’t have any reason to remain
there. That was how I was discharged.
While
you were going through all these at the facility what happened to your job?
I was a marketer in an oil and gas
company. I worked on commission basis, but at a point, I realized that people
were not calling me and when I called they won’t pick my calls. Even the person
that I report directly refused to pick my calls and also refused to associate
with me. Justina and I just got our jobs, she got hers at First Consultant
Hospital and I got mine as a marketer with the oil and gas company.
Do
you think that the government or First Consultant Hospital should compensate
Justina’s family?
Although, no amount of money they give to
the family will bring her back I think the government owes Justina’s family a
lot because she died trying to save a situation. Justina died in active service
as her death wasn’t natural.
So
how did your status change from positive to negative?
I was reading a book on healing and
taking of the Holy Communion. So I learnt to take Holy Communion morning,
afternoon and night. I also engaged myself in feet-washing every day before
going to bed. The Almighty God saved me; the Holy Spirit healed me. It wasn’t
as though l didn’t fall sick as l had direct contact with Justina but the
Almighty God healed me. When I was discharged, I got to my house on Saturday
evening and spent two hours the next day, Sunday, thanking God on my own. I
didn’t go to church or anywhere because of the already established stigma but
today I can confidently attend church activities because I guess they all know
I’m free now. I know my faith and belief healed me. God also worked for me
apart from the fact that my immune system is also working. I believe I got
healed also because friends prayed for me.
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