A photo taken on October 21, 2014 shows the ward where the first reported case of the Ebola virus in Nigeria was brought by Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer who contaminated nurses and health workers at First Consultants Hospital in Obalende, Lagos. Nigeria was declared Ebola-free on October 20 in a “spectacular success” in the battle to contain the spread of a virus which is devastating Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia where more than 4,500 people have died. The World Health Organization said Nigeria — Africa’s most populous country where eight deaths had sparked fears of a rapid spread through its teeming cities — had shown the world “that Ebola can be contained”. AFP PHOTO
By Chidi Nkwopara
OWERRI—Palpable confusion reigned supreme at the Specialist Hospital, Owerri, Sunday night, as operatives of Imo Security Network, ISN, stormed the hospital at about 8.15p.m. and ordered patients and workers to vacate.
Vanguard gathered from the startled workers and close relatives of the patients on admission that one of the ISN operatives, who identified himself simply as the Owerri West Local Government Area Commander of ISN, locked the hospital gate and left, when he did not succeed in sending the workers and patients out of the hospital.
Our correspondent, who was attracted to the scene, following distress calls from workers, saw how three pregnant women in labour were taken to other hospitals.
One of the workers told Vanguard that “as at the time the ISN Commander stormed the hospital, a patient was being attended to in the theatre,” adding that “when we sought to know where he drew his powers from, he told us that Governor Rochas Okorocha gave him the directive to shut the hospital down.”
Continuing, the worker said that when the ISN Commander could not force the staff to abandon their patients or for the patients on admission to vacate their beds at that odd hour, the man left and locked the hospital gate.
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