7 October 2009
editorial
Lagos — The recent death of Mr. Bayo Ohu, a Guardian journalist, from assassins' bullets has reopened a national debate on the existence or otherwise of a law barring the treatment of victims of gunshot wounds by medical practitioners without an accompanying police report.
Ohu was gruesomely shot in his home in Lagos on September 20, 2009 by a gang of assassins. By the time the deadly gang left the scene, the journalist had been seriously wounded but neighbours who rushed in said he was still breathing. Pronto, he was rushed to a nearby private hospital whose management flatly refused to touch his bullet-ridden body let alone administering any first aid treatment on him. The hospital cited the absence of a police report for refusing to save Bayo's life.
It was generally believed that if the hospital had admitted and treated Ohu, he would have probably survived. But the man died on the way to a government hospital where he was taken after being turned back by the private hospital.
But in an apparent spur-of-the-moment reaction, the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Ogbonnaya Onovo issued a press statement denying the existence of any law requiring the presentation of a police report before victims of gunshot wounds could be treated by any hospital. He asked medical practitioners and other operators of health facilities in the country to save victims of gunshot wounds and accident before contacting the police.
"At no time did the police restrain medical doctors from attending to the needs of the victims", Onovo said with a mark of finality to absolve the police of responsibility for the lives of those that must have died because of the inhuman directive.
But Onovo's clarification failed to address some fundamental issues. For instance, if, as he said, the police never barred medics from attending to victims of gunshot wounds, what could have been responsible for the almost unanimous agreement among private medical doctors in the country to always steer clear of patients in this category? If there was no police directive not to treat gunshot wounds victims why should men in police uniform always harass hospitals that treat such victims?
It could be true that indeed no such law or directive exists in the police statute but it could have been fuelled by the actions of some overzealous policemen intent on extorting money from innocent Nigerians.
It could also have been popularised by the jaundiced belief that every victim of gunshot wounds should be an armed robber or a criminal. But even if this is so, don't armed robbers have a right to life at least until convicted in properly constituted courts and duly executed in accordance with the law?
It is disheartening that many lives which could have been saved, have been lost to that practice. The police authorities and medical practitioners should share the blame for these avoidable deaths caused by the inherent ambiguity in this non-existing law or directive.
While the police are a little tardy in coming up with their clarification, the medical doctors did not live up to the expectation of their professional obligation to save lives, which is the basis of the Hippocratic oath.
To avoid further deaths from this type of ambiguous law, we call on the Inspector General of Police to publicize his signed clarification, if possible by making it into handbills and flyers for distribution to all hospitals in the country. On its part, the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) should educate doctors and nurses on this issue.
The association should also make it a point of duty to always report any case of police harassment for treating gunshot wounds victims to higher police authorities. The planned legislation on this matter by the Senate will also go a long way to laying issue to rest.
Gunshot victims taken to the hospitals should get prompt medical attention even if they are criminals. What hospital authorities could do to help the law enforcement agencies is by promptly informing the nearest police stations of the presence of the patient.
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