How We Lost Dr. Vwaere To Nigeria’s Anyhowness by Barr Chukwudi Iwuchukwu
When Dr. Vwaere was being inducted as a Nigerian doctor after her six-year sojourn at Babcock University last year, she had high hopes and expectations.
She had hopes for a flourishing medical career.
Expectations to use her newly learned medical skills to benefit the community and society at large.
Training a child at a Babcock medical college is quite expensive and does not come cheap.
3.5 million per annum for school fees alone during her time; it is now 6.5 million per annum, but her parents did it because they wanted to give the best to their daughter and then to avoid the anyhowness in the Nigerian university eco system.
Post-induction, Dr. Vwaere got a place to do her internship at General Hospital (Odan, Lagos Island), a facility owned by the Lagos State Government.
Before Dr. Vwaere joined the General Hospital as a student doctor, it was noticed by the resident doctors and staff of the hospital that the only elevator at the hospital had been in bad shape since 2018 and then there was no running water in the hospital.
But because of Nigeria’s anyhowness, one big madam, or Oga, siphoned or embezzled the money meant to replace the elevator while patchy work was done at the elevator to serve as a temporary respite, endangering people’s lives in the process and turning deaf ears to the genuine complaints by resident doctors at the hospital.
The elevator was so bad that it stopped at intervals, and you had to manually use your hand to close it in order to continue your journey.
The carelessness, wickedness, and anyhowness culture we have here have finally ended the journey and the dreams of Dr. Vwaere.
Just like the rest of us, Dr. Vwaere woke up today with bright hopes for the month of August.
She was upbeat for one reason: her housemanship at General Hospital (Odan, Lagos Island) was finally coming to an end.
She had less than two weeks to round up
She went to work excited that she has less than 2 weeks to complete her housemanship.
And this afternoon, a dispatch rider who brought the food she ordered online called her on the phone to let her know that he was around.
Since she was free, she elected to go and pick the food herself from the ground flour where the dispatch rider was, and on her way to meet the dispatch rider,
She entered the faulty elevator.
And then disaster struck.
The elevator fell from the 10th floor, where she was, to the ground with a loud thud that shook the foundation of the hospital.
Even the dispatch rider who was waiting at the entrance of the elevator thought that Armageddon was here when he heard the noise, so the man ran for his dear life.
It took one hour before Dr. Vwaere was rescued from the debris of what was once the elevator.
She was still alive, though badly injured, and was bleeding when she was brought out and rushed to the emergency section of the hospital.
And from multiple accounts of those who witnessed the surreal drama
Dr. Vwaere was crying that she did not want to die; even while stuck in the elevator for hours, she was crying for help.
“I don’t want to die; help me,” she cried nonstop.
She cried that she wanted to live and not die, but her desire to live was truncated by Nigeria’s anyhowness, which snuffed the life out of her.
Again, Nigeria’s anyhowness kicked in and deprived her of this chance to live.
She was taken to the emergency section of the hospital, but after another delay because there was no blood,
That was how Dr. Vwaere gave up the ghost.
The young lady died just like that.
Corruption kills, and this is another part of corruption we don’t discuss well enough.
We just lost Dr. Vwaere because of that hydra-headed monster and Nigeria’s culture of anyhowness.
I am visibly upset as I’m writing this.
This is not right.
We can’t continue like this.
We can’t continue living like this, like animals.
For how long will we continue to tolerate losing our best and brightest to this culture of mediocrity?
Nigeria keeps devouring its youth.
Nigeria failed Dr. Vwaere; may her innocent blood spilled for no reason haunt and punish those criminals who embezzled the money meant for a new elevator.
