There was panic at the Edo Specialist Hospital in Benin City yesterday as personnel of the Department of State Services (DSS) clashed with private guards and men of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) over alleged unprofessional response by medical personnel when the DSS brought one of its men who slumped during a meeting in their office.
It took the intervention of the police who were called from the Oba Market Police Station and the chief security officer (CSO), Government House, before calm was restored.
An unmarked white colour Hilux van which conveyed the DSS personnel who wore jackets were seen at the hospital premises.
At the end of the chaos, some people sustained injuries including the private security guards and a female operative of the NSCDC.
A DSS official said, “We were in a meeting when he slumped and he was rushed to our health facility to check his pulse, we then rushed him to the Edo Specialist Hospital which is the closest to our office but the reception we got there was poor. It was our people that had to bring our colleague down from the vehicle.
“When you go to the hospital, courtesy demands that you bring the patient down and attend to him or her, at least show commitment but right in the car, they said they cannot carry him and we have to carry him down ourselves.”
When contacted, the hospital medical director, Dr David Odiko, said the patient was promptly attended to by the doctor on duty who confirmed him dead as at the time they brought him but that the DSS personnel refused to accept it.
He said, “I was not in the hospital when the incident happened because I was in the court for a case; it was from there they called me and as at the time I came, they had left, but I met policemen on ground.
“They brought him as an emergency, he was said to have slumped and the doctor on duty went to check and he said he met the guy lying on the seat of the car and that there was no breathing movement because that is the first thing you see; if you can see that the chest and abdomen are moving, he didn’t see that then he proceeded to check if there were still pulse and heartbeat which were also absent. He said he still proceeded to do CPR but there was no response.
“The diagnosis the doctor made was that he was brought in dead and they said they were not going to take that and they personally moved him into our facility and dropped him on the floor. They actually injured the civil defence personnel that was on duty on her head,” Odiko said.
