On Monday, there was a confrontation between members of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defense Corps and employees of the Department of State Services at the Edo Specialist Hospital in Benin.
The altercation purportedly started when DSS officials brought in one of their men who had collapsed during a meeting in their office, and the medical staff reacted in an allegedly unprofessional manner.
Before everything returned to normal, the Chief Security Officer of Government House and the police from the Oba Market Police Station had to step in.
Several people were hurt during the chaos, including female NSCDC employees and private security guards.
“We were in a meeting when the person we brought to the hospital slumped. He was rushed to our health facility to check his pulse,” a DSS official stated. After that, we hurried him to the hospital that is nearest to our workplace, Edo Specialist Hospital, but we didn’t have a good experience there.
“Our colleagues had to be helped out of the car by our staff. Hospitals want you to bring the patient down and tend to him or her; at the very least, you should demonstrate your devotion. However, as soon as you get in the car, they tell you that they are unable to carry the patient and that you must do it yourself.
However, when being called, Dr. David Odiko, the Medical Director of the hospital, stated that although the DSS staff refused to acknowledge the patient’s death, the attending physician had swiftly attended to him.
“I was in the courtroom for a case when the incident occurred, so I wasn’t in the hospital,” he stated. They contacted me from that location, and by the time I arrived at the hospital, they had already departed, but I still encountered police officers.
He was brought in as an urgent patient. When the attending physician went to check on him after hearing that he had collapsed, he reported finding the patient unconscious and laying on the vehicle seat.
He checked to see if there was still a pulse and heartbeat, but they were missing as well. He was unable to discern movement in the chest or abdomen. He claimed that even after doing CPR, there was no reaction.
“The physician concluded that the patient had been brought in deceased, and they refused to accept that. They took the patient inside our facility and left him on the ground. I was informed that the Civil Defense troops who were on duty had been wounded on the head by another set of personnel.
