By YOU might ask: Why didn’t you guys go for treatment at UCH? We did. She did—from the very beginning. She had spent the first six months running tests there. Bureaucracy, strikes and various delays were responsible for the lengthy period, or so I was told.
By the time we met the pastor-doctor, we had already expressed our distrust and dissatisfaction with UCH. Our sentiments were genuine. When a hospital begins to feel more like an abattoir than a curative centre, trust evaporates.
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It was at UCH that I took my mother in September 2011. She spent 13 days there, with no definite ailment identified as the cause of her failing health. We went through hell. Twenty-four hours before her passing, my mother begged me to return her to my house, where she eventually ascended on 28 September 2011, at about 11:00 p.m. Before I took her away, no test results or treatment plans had been communicated. Workers behaved as though they were forced into employment. Some had become principalities in their domains. Empathy for the sick was dead. Everyone seemed engaged in a rat race for mammon.
So, UCH was not an option for us. I had vowed, whilst taking my mother away, never to seek medical help there again—for myself or any of my loved ones.
However, despite our reservations, the doctor the pastor-doctor referred us to insisted that we come to UCH. It was a tall order. We went, only to face another round of torment. The doctor referred us to another—with a long queue of patients waiting. We learnt that oncology patients were only attended to on Wednesdays, so you can imagine the sea of heads.
When it was finally our turn, the oncologist asked questions, but we felt uncomfortable with student doctors crowding around and listening. I protested. He explained their presence, then examined my wife.
“Are you done with having children, madam?” he asked. My wife and I looked at each other’s faces. We were done by providence, not by our choice!
With many patients still waiting, he quickly listed further tests for us to carry out.
That was when the UCH wahala began in earnest. I learnt that no fewer than seven cancer cases are brought to that department every week. You could see the stress etched on the doctors’ faces—overworked, battling poor electricity, offensive odour and surrounded by a gloomy, grim atmosphere. One visit was enough to make anyone flee, make you more sick and despondent, and never wish to return.
We struggled to pay and complete the tests. If not for the assistance of a former church member who works there, the suffering of moving from one point to another would have been unimaginable. In situations where you cannot navigate the payment and testing points alone, you might have to pay agberos—some of whom are actual staff—to run errands for a fee.
After two days, we took our destiny into our own hands and left. At this point, my wife was still going to work. We were still active in church. No one knew what was happening. The Shepherd is wired to be strong in adversity. My wife looked fresh outwardly, but was being eaten up from within. Close brethren whom we trusted had joined us in prayer and fasting.
April 2023 was also instructive. Shortly after the Easter weekend, my great-aunt and foster mother called from Kogi. My wife was beside me when the call came. The 107-year-old princess’s voice was sharp and urgent:
“Won’t you come and see me before I join my ancestors?”
The words pierced my heart. Truly, I had been away from her for too long. Mama Folake was the angel God used to raise me from infancy, for which I remain eternally grateful. My wife signalled that I should assure Mama I would visit soon.
“When?” she asked.
“The coming weekend,” I replied. It coincided with the end of Ramadan and the glamorous Ovia Osese Festival of the Ogori people.
Despite being in pain, my wife began helping me to prepare for the trip to Kogi and insisted I should drive down. I obeyed and was joined by an old friend from Akure. At Ogori, Mama Folake asked after my wife. I said she was fine. She would probably have accompanied me if she had been well.
Throughout my stay in Ogori, my mind raced back to her condition. The herbal practitioner had delivered the first batch of his prescription. And to be fair, besides inheriting the art from his lineage in Ekiti according to him, he held a master’s degree in pharmacognosy from the Premier University. He was not one of those local, demon-conjuring herbalists in town.
But did the herbal remedies work? After the UCH tests, did we go ahead with their recommended treatments?
These and more will be shared in the next publication.
To be continued…
Ebenezer writes from Warri, Delta State in one-year loving immemorial of his wife, Princess Denise Yetunde Adurokiya.
