by Ifeanyi Dike

On the day you get inducted into the medical council and swear the Hippocratic Oath, two things come to mind – relief and pride – relief because the worst is finally over and pride because you made it through. And then there’s fear and excitement beneath all the celebration – fear that you would get a job and be tossed into a fast paced world and you have to learn quickly and move quickly and save lives quickly and excitement because you relish it. But death, the fear of death, is seldom visited even though we know how easy death can be accomplished. When it happens to a colleague, we are reminded how delicately we must tread and how ruthlessly we must fight to save lives regardless. In this, not many of us are brave enough but not many of us are Dr. Ameyo Stella Adadevoh, a name that would (that should) remind us selflessness and sacrifice and remind those who govern us how intently we should be handled.

True, Dr Ameyo S.A may not have been absolutely sure or even known at all that Nigeria’s Patient Zero came to her bearing Ebola but as is instilled in doctors through clinical practice and the oath, I’m confident she would not have acted differently. More so, because even after she diagnosed Patrick Sawyer as Ebola Virus positive, she did not relent, she did all that she could and mercilessly. She brought the much deserved attention that jolted our government into awakening.

Our government allegedly offered any doctor who would volunteer to the Ebola Centre, N50,000 per week and a N30,000,000 life insurance policy, the sort of incentive that we have long ago fought for and in many ways, deserved, and an offering that ends up feeling dirty and unrealistic and unfair in the present circumstance to all the years we have fought for better treatment. Then there was the urgent sacking and termination of all resident programs across the country because ‘in the light of this epidemic, we should be saving lives’ when in actuality, without the strike, Patrick would have most likely been admitted to into a Teaching Hospital with double the patients and double the doctors coming in contact and disseminating the disease with double the speed and to double the people. So, in a way, the strike was a blessing especially to newer intern intakes and the decision to fire all, void and useless.

And all we would have to offer would be tremendous care and that in doing so, if I endanger my life, nothing would be (could be) done by the people that should look out for me. A battle that Dr Ameyo Stella Adadevoh had to fight and win and in peace, give us a voice. She should indeed be remembered.

The strike is not only about money. It is in fact barely about money. It is about the lack of respectable treatment, a lack of research facilities and equipment with which we can unravel great clinical finds of our own as a nation that is affected by a roster of tropical diseases. A number of people were upset that the United States did not send over their experimental drugs. Is it not a little shameful that we had and have nothing to fight our own tribulations, not a research that is helpful, nothing! Why should the US care for or about a people who have not first cared for their own by first caring for the doctors to make this possible and empowering them with the tools to. Why should the US listen to a country whose only response to the epidemic was ‘That Patrick Sawyer is a mad man?’ We should have something at least to show for something, anything, to account for being the giant of Africa or to say that we are somehow progressive, something that puts us at par with our international counterparts so that we do not always seem like we are millions of worlds apart – these problems that would gradually be solved if we got what we needed.

As a newly inducted Nigerian doctor, I’m a little worried that in my career, no strides would be made; no new medical milestones would be reached. And all we would have to offer would be tremendous care and that in doing so, if I endanger my life, nothing would be (could be) done by the people that should look out for me. A battle that Dr Ameyo Stella Adadevoh had to fight and win and in peace, give us a voice. She should indeed be remembered.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.