August 04, (THEWILL) – When Dr. Vwaere Diaso stepped into the elevator of General Hospital Odan Lagos Island last Monday, she already knew there was something wrong with the clunky contraption conveying people up and down the 10-storey building. It was not the first time she would be riding the pulley.
On mandatory one-year houseman-ship since July 2022 with the Lagos State-owned health facility and a graduate of medicine from Babcock University Ilishan-Remo Ogun state, Vwaere knew quite well the wonky condition of the lift just like many of the hospital’s staff, patients and sundry visitors who ride it daily. There had been complaints of the said elevator malfunctioning while in use: of rattling and groaning to a stop midway, for instance.
Because of faulty hydraulics, also, those already in it had to sometimes pry it open manually. Some other times it took longer to ascend or descend the floors. And then, there was that gnawing fear that the bottom might just drop out one day. Though the hospital’s employees complained severally to the authorities no one seemed to pay them any mind.
So, when the young female doctor stepped in that day, she probably hoped for the best and, possibly, made a sign of the cross for a safe ‘journey’ like a traveller embarking on a long-distance trip. Vwaere’s trip was no marathon. It was a short one – from the 10th floor down to the ground floor to meet a delivery man downstairs with her lunch pack.
Even with the brief stops on each floor and barring any hitch along the way, it would have taken just a few minutes from top to ground floor – enough time for Vwaere to grab a meal she must have been looking forward to and then head back up. She didn’t live to eat her lunch.
Reports say the bottom dropped out of the lift once Vwaere got in and began the journey downwards. She was the sole occupant. Broken in body and spirit and bleeding, rescuers found her after about an hour. Rushed to the emergency unit, the unfortunate woman did not survive the accident.
In retrospect, it seemed that Murphy’s Law was pretty much at work because everything that could possibly go wrong did. Not only was the trapped and wounded doctor discovered late, meaning that she was unattended while in severe pain, there was not one pint of blood in the entire hospital when her colleagues worked frantically to save her life.
Details of Dr. Vwaere’s painful and avoidable death trickled in early this week, many of them blaming the hospital management for “negligence and a possible case of embezzlement of funds” as a likely cause of her demise.
“A doctor who had just 2 weeks to complete her houseman-ship just died in a general hospital (Odan, Lagos Island) due to poor management and negligence!!! The elevator she was in fell from the 10th floor to the ground,” Big Amara tweeted soon after the tragic incident. Another reported that “the elevator hasn’t been working well for the past year. Whoever was in charge ate the money and the management has been patching it up despite complaints from resident doctors,” adding that “they are still even owing salaries of doctors that worked last year Dec but we have no one to fight for us. If you talk they threaten you with license suspension.”
A medical staff of the hospital Olanrewaju Aiyepola wrote that “we’ve complained for a long time about this elevator. We’ve manoeuvred, managed, and prayed each time we had to use it. Empty promises will be made to fix it….till it killed one of us. Everyone responsible either directly or indirectly must be held accountable.”
Even visitors to General Hospital expressed their apprehension about the elevator before the tragic incident last Monday. One of them, Kiky Festus, tweeted thusly: “I’m so angry because they have been complaining about this elevator for years. Even when I go to visit my friend more than 2 people can’t go in it and if it stops at the 6th floor you have to use your hands to close it yourself and step back behind a line to even out your weight.”
For an unnamed respondent, blame for the Vwaere tragedy lies squarely at the doorstep of the government, a tragedy that is all too common in daily lives of Nigerians. “All she wanted to do was get her food from a dispatcher downstairs,” the commentator wrote. And after the accident, “It even took them an hour to get her out of the elevator. She was still conscious even with fractures. She was taken to emergency and then another delay, no blood. This country failed her.”
Apparently, Dr. Mrs. Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu does not share that view of the government failing the young female doctor. Speaking to protesting doctors over their colleague’s untimely and unfortunate demise midweek, the First lady who is a medical doctor herself described Vwaere’s death as an “arrow fired into the health family.”
Her inference is not hard to see: spiritual forces were at work in the death of Vwaere and not negligence and carelessness on the part of the hospital authorities. Before meeting with the medical professionals, chairman of Lagos State chapter of Nigeria Medical Association Dr. Benjamin Olowojebutu and the Secretary Ismail Ajibowo had ordered a three-day strike for doctors working in all the three government hospitals in Lagos Island.
In a peace mission to the doctors presumably, the state governor’s wife expressed her befuddlement at what was clearly one coincidence too many on the first day of the month. On the same day of the bottomed out elevator, an aircraft plunged straight from the sky and burst into flames on Oba Akran Road at Ikeja. There were no fatalities however. But the strange occurrence was enough to pique the First Lady’s curiosity.
“An arrow has been fired into the health family,” Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu said. “The first of August is a day I will never forget. The same day a helicopter crashed, the same day a lift dropped down. How? How? How?”
No sooner had the questions left her lips than responders took her on. The unfortunate incident at GH was a result of “poor maintenance of the elevator by the hospital management and not any metaphysical attack.”
Making a direct allusion to Murphy’s Law, @ceemancy observed that “anything that can go wrong will go wrong and at the worst possible time … .Murphy’s law. That’s why maintenance is very important.”
On the First Lady’s rhetorical question “how” @deesick responded commonsensically: “How? Negligence, nonchalance, carelessness. That’s how” while @DieuEmeka blamed the death of Dr. Diaso on the failure of the government. “The how is simple nah. The government which her husband heads failed to maintain the lift. There was no arrow. It was simply a result of corruption and irresponsibility on the part of the government. That is what, why, and how.”
In the meantime, Lagos State Government has set up a panel to investigate the causes leading to the death of Dr. Vwaere. Olumide Sogunle, a Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information and Strategy said midweek.
“An inquiry by a team of officials from the Lagos State Ministry of Health, Lagos State Health Service Commission, Lagos State Safety Commission, and certified Lift and Vertical Transportation Equipment experts has commenced,” Sogunle said. “The Lagos State Government will ensure that anyone found negligent by the report of the inquiry will face appropriate sanctions.”
Michael Jimoh is a Nigerian journalist with many years experience in print media. He is currently a Special Correspondent with THEWILL.
