Poor Prescription Kills Patient in Bafut

Benjamin Ngah

          Authorities of the Bafut District Hospital, Manji are still to come to terms with the passing on of a patient purportedly having been overdosed with drugs by some medical student on internship in the hospital.

           Eyewitness account holds that a the patient, who from all indication was suffering from cerebral malaria and whose names we are withholding for ethical reasons was brought to the hospital last weekend. Unfortunately, the District Medical Officer (DMO) is said not to have been on seat and the intents opted to demonstrate their medical knowhow on the patient. The patient who was so violent needed tranquilizers which they administered. As the patient kept on agitating awaiting that the tranquilizers sink into his blood to calm her, the intent thought they had given her an under dose and added another dose. This rendered the patient unconscious and motionless.

          The intent did not know that the patient was passing on as they kept on manipulating her and waiting for her recovery. For them, they had successfully neutralized the patient.

            It was the family members of the patient who came and demanded she be transferred to a better hospital. The intents refused and it resulted into a fight over the patients. According the intents, the family members had no right to take away their patient who was undergoing treatment. The family members on their part knew that the life of their patient was in the hands of amateurs and decided to use force to take her away.

           Feeling cheated and disgraced, the intents took the police while the family members whisk their patient to Nsem Hospital. While there, the medics judged the condition to be precarious and referred them to Mbingo Baptist hospital in Kom.  Before their arrival there, the patient had already given up the ghost to the consternation of the family members.

           The family members upon arriving Bafut went to the police to answer to their summons. The police could not comprehend the drama. The case is still in the hands of the Bafut police though the patient has been laid to rest.

          The Bafut case is just one in many that abound in our hospitals.  This is clear indication that   not only laxity and laissez-fair exist in our hospital to the detriment of lives, but is a pointer to the fact that our hospital lack adequate personnel. How could a patient be allowed in the hands of intents without any supervision?  Why the patient was not rushed to any of the hospital in town but far away Mbingo.