How I was drugged and my baby stolen by midwife - satellite Times - Satellite Times Nigeria

He came down with a mysterious illness inside the examination hall only to become deaf within minutes. Anthony Offor was a final year student of Political Science at the University of Lagos.

With the death of his father shortly after, he was faced with a bleak future as no employer would want to hire him. Determined to claw his way out of a terrifying situation, Offor wrote a letter, appealing to the Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, for help.

Against all odds, the governor responded and took pity on him, approving N4-4 million for what is called cochlea implant surgery.

That was in June 2017. Once the deaf student was told his cheque was ready but the money has remained elusive with the deaf young man suffering a double jeopardy as health ministry officials endlessly toss him from one desk to another.

When SATELLITE TIMES located him, Anthony Offor was literally at his wits end inside a Ear Nose and Throat (ENT) Specialist hospital in Lagos where, communicating only by writing, he made it clear he has been robbed.

My hearing loss

“My predicament started in 2010 while I was writing my final exams at the University of Lagos. I was feeling feverish on campus and at first dismissed it as the normal malaria. It intensified inside the examination hall.

I could see people were talking because their lips were moving but I could not hear a word. Same too with the doctors and nurses who were asking me questions. They could only communicate with me through writing. It was a frightening experience for me.

I got a referral to an ENT hospital where the specialists after examining me said I required to undergo a surgery known as cochlea implant.

At the time in 2010, the cost of the surgery and implant was put at slightly above N3 million. My father could not afford it immediately but promised to run around for it. But about two months after, precisely on November 6, 2010, he died in an auto crash.

That put paid to the surgery. After the death of my father, I forced myself to return to school because I hadn’t written all my last semester papers when that illness struck me. But I could no longer fit into the school system because I could not hear what the lecturers were saying. I however managed to take the last papers and graduated with a Second Class Upper Division.

Tales of woes

“After school, I have faced heart breaking discriminations which persons with hearing loss are made to go through in our society. It has been impossible to find any government ministry, agency or parastatal that is willing to employ someone with hearing loss. Even with my BSC qualification., it has become impossible to secure a job anywhere; not the Army, Police, Customs, among many others. Although I am deaf, my speech is not affected. I can speak and even sing.”

Petition to the governor

A copy of the petition he sent to Governor Ambode was made available to SATELLITE TIMES. It was dated October 17, 2016. In it, Offor appealed to the governor for medical assistance to pay for his surgery.

On November 29, 2016, the governor sent a reply in which he directed the Commissioner for Health, Jide Idris to act on Offor’s matter immediately.

On February 18, 2017 he got a message from the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) to meet a team of ENT doctors on the orders of the state government.

Upon getting to LASUTH, he was shown a letter written by the Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Ministry of Health, to the Chief Medical Director, Prof. Wale Oke, to convene a medical board and summon him for examination to determine the actual situation in his case and to know the remedy suitable for the type of hearing loss.

In the letter, they were further directed that the findings and recommendation of the board be submitted to the office of the Permanent Secretary, to facilitate the processing of the payment in the ministry.

Offor was told that LASUTH did not have some of the equipment required to carry out the necessary tests on him, like the Radiology test, Audiology test, and CT Scan.

He was given a request form and was told to go to Mecure Diagnostics Centre located at Oshodi to undergo the three tests and return to LASUTH with the results.  He however had to bear the cost of the tests including the administrative cost which totalled about N55, 000.

After so much effort he was able to do all the three tests and returned to LASUTH with the results, together with four X-ray films, one compact disc (the CT scan).

Once again, the panel of LASUTH doctors converged, and this time the Chief Medical Director of LASUTH, Prof. Wale Oke, was in attendance. The medical board quickly came out with their findings and recommendations, that he required a cochlea implant surgery.

Anthony Offor’s medical result

The doctors however took turns in examining his other organs with their gadgets and equally certified him fit and physically healthy for the surgery, and also wrote a referral, ratifying his admission into the relevant clinic; B.S.A. Hearing and Speech Centre, located at 49, Oluwaleyimu Street, off Allen Avenue Ikeja Lagos.

The corrective surgery and implant according to the medical board would cost about N4.4million and the bill was equally forwarded to the office of the Permanent Secretary by the board. An anonymous donor is said to have last year made a mandatory non-refundable deposit of N400,000 to the hospital.

SATELLITE TIMES confirmed that after the medical board had on June 19, 2017 sent their report and recommendations, duly signed by the Chief Medical Director, to the Permanent Secretary as demanded, Anthony Offor was advised to go to the Health Ministry to collect the cheque and proceed to B.S.A Centre for the surgery.

Anthony went to the Health Ministry in high spirit to collect the cheque but to his greatest bewilderment he met with bureaucratic bottlenecks.

Letter of protest by Anthony to the Governor of Lagos

Suddenly, nobody seemed to know where his file is, nobody appeared to have seen the cheque and nobody could be definitive on the way forward. Eighteen months after the ear patient is still in a lurch with the kind governor believing the surgery had long been carried out.

SATELLITE TIMES’ attempts to find out what happened to the N4.4 million took this reporter to the Lagos state Ministry of Health Alausa Ikeja; particularly to the Special Project Unit, Room 516.  The ministry officials there all played dumb, with one later saying that the senior medical officer handling Anthony Offor’s case had gone to represent the Ministry at an event to mark the World Mental Health day.

On a subsequent visit, the Director of Public Affairs, Mrs Adeola Salako, said although her office received a brief in respect of SATELLITE TIMES’ enquiry, she was still looking into the matter for updates. She added that as far as the Ministry is concerned, it was not possible for the funds to be diverted or misappropriated because if money had been made available to Anthony Offor surgery, the cheque would be in his name.

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