olaoluwatomi

I know many of you will read this one:) Everyone even hardened pips like love stories. Well this is the first one I have encountered or actually paid attention to in the course of my work. I will change details in the story and of course their names to protect their privacy, sit back and enjoy the tale. David was a young healthy man whose body may have been something to behold before the mobster attack while he was on his way to work. But in the emergency room 3months ago he was desperately fighting to survive, he sustained several stab wounds to his abdomen, fractures to both upper limbs and his face has been severely disfigured by the machetes used to cut him up. At the end of his surgery he was a shadow of himself. He had a colostomy which was put in to divert faeces because of the injury to his gut. In simple terms he passes stool from his abdominal wall and not his rectum. His wounds have healed but he is badly scarred. It took him several weeks to recover and I must confess I wa...

I can hardly recognise myself. When I wanted to be a doctor I had tall dreams of being a very compassionate individual who did not yell or get frustrated with patients. One who took time to listen, empathise, understand......you can fill in the gaps. These days more often than not I dont slow down to listen, empathise or even understand them. Okay I'm exaggerating. Lets say I prefrentially discriminate. Patients who smile at me when they walk into my office greeting me first are more likely to leave my office feeling they have met a good doctor than those who barge in demanding to see a doctor, and even after I tell them I'm one they look over my head to see if there is anyone hiding behind me. Next they demand for drugs to aid in the healing of their wounds (pls tell me you know of one such drug) and when I explain that no such drug exists they look around even more as if to justify their previous thoughts that this small toad cant be a doctor. Forgive my rantings but why is i...

Sometimes the above caption is true especially when I see Naija through the eyes of non-Nigerians. Remarks not meant to hurt but just stating the bare facts are like barbed arrows through my sensitive heart. When you come froma country where 'everything' works, well almost everything landing in naija not just gives you a huge jolt but an attendant destruction of those organs that should act as shock absorbers to delicate souls,(well im exaggerating!) How can a countries health care system be so disorganised they wonder, Services the govt. should be providing is non-existent. Why are their roads so bad? Do the citizens not pay their taxes to help with road repairs? Why are hteir streets so dirty? How come there are so many accidents with motorcycles? Why didnt this patient get a CT scan as soon as he came in? Why is there so much corruption? What answers do I give to such questions? Attempting to explain the ineptitude of our govt to deal with issues that pertain to life leaves ...

The recent furor in the United Kingdom over knife attacks (another young Nigerian was stabbed to death on the 17th of June) shows their government is determined to see an end of wanton violence. In Nigeria we dont even have the statistics of the number of persons killed after being knifed or stabbed. Its interesting that in the last three days ( I have covered the night shift) I have seen 3 victims attacked by knifes/machetes. Only one of the three ended up as a mortality. If I was to count how many I have seen since I started work in the Niger Delta if this was the United Kingdom a state of emergency would have been declared by now! The first victim was a young man who had been stabbed about an hour before he arrived at our facility. He could not have been more than 18years. He was brought in Dead by the police. Immediately I confirmed him dead his assailant (who was also barely an adult) was immediately handcuffed and taken away. The incident shook all the medical staff up and it wa...

Hello everyone yours truly is live in Lagos, I am so relieved it looks like living in the Niger Delta is one big strain on my constitution, cos I arrived in Lagos at night and I did not even clutch my handbag close to me or look to see if anyone was walking behind me as I usually do when going home from work in the ND. I guess its because I feel safer in Lagos not that Lagos is a safe place. I have five days off and I just could not imagine spending them in the ND. My cousin who I went to visit in Bonny Island (see my post Bonny Island!) is going on leave at an oppurtune time. Violence has increased, threats to non-indigenes are on the rise so far non-indigenes have been given an ultimatum to leave the island before a certain date! So much for my talk about Bonny Island being a paradise, right now I wont accept a million naira to go live there! Well everyone Im in Lagos and im happy to be back home for now, I intend to enjoy all the time I have here! Ciao!

1.08am 4th July 2008 This time last year I was busy monitoring my sisters progress in labour via the GSM. I could hardly sleep, I actually did not sleep and I was exhausted in the morning when at last the watch was over. At exactly 7am she 'dropped' a healthy female child. I went off with my parents (one set of proud grandparents) to catch a glimpse of the new arrival who was now the centre of attraction( babies always seem to steal the spotlight!) My sister looked very tired and could barely sit up to acknowledge our greetings and excited cries of how light her child was and how beautiful she looked but her husband filled in the silence on her part with his response. The joy on his face could light up the artic, you could see that he was the proud father! The next day my sister tried her best to act the part of a good mother, she tried to breastfeed, to get out of bed but she was so tired. I put it all down to her being exhausted by the process of labour. On the morning of the...

Would like to have, to do, to own:) Not necessarily in this order 1.Twentyfour hours access to the internet. Speed must be faster than that of light! 2. Friends to walk beside me each and every day and vice versa. 3. A library full of books I have never read and books I would love to read again and of course every edition of the National Geographic Magazine. 4. Valid airtickets to visit my family anytime I feel like! 5. A passport filled with visas to fulfill my longtime dream of travelling round the globe. 6. A Peugeot 307 brand new (dont ask me why) 7. Work in a rural district in Naija with the best medical equipment in the world, where the bills of patients have been paid for already. 8. Eat pounded yam with efo riro right now (Im hungry!) 9. Win the 10million naira prize on who wants to be a millionaire. 10. Learn to speak French, German and Hausa.