Crisis erupted at the Edo Specialist Hospital in Benin on Monday as personnel of the Department of State Services clashed with private guards and men of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps.
The clash reportedly resulted from an alleged unprofessional response by medical personnel when the DSS officials brought in one of their men who slumped while in a meeting in their office.
It took the intervention of the police, who were called from the Oba Market Police Station, and the Chief Security Officer, Government House before calm was restored.
At the end of the pandemonium, some people, including private security guards and female personnel of the NSCDC were injured.
An official of the DSS said,
“We were in a meeting when the person we brought to the hospital slumped, and he was rushed to our health facility to check his pulse. We then rushed him to the Edo Specialist Hospital, which is the closest to our office, but the reception we got there was poor.
“It was our people that had to bring our colleague down from the vehicle. When you go to the hospital, courtesy demands that you bring the patient down and attend to him or her; at least show commitment, but right in the car, they said they cannot carry him and we have to carry him down ourselves.”
But when contacted, the hospital’s Medical Director, Dr David Odiko, said the patient was promptly attended to by the doctor on duty, who confirmed him dead, but that the DSS personnel refused to accept it.
He said,
“I was not in the hospital when the incident happened because I was in the court for a case. It was from there that they called me, and when I got to the hospital, they had left, but I met policemen on the ground.
“They brought him as an emergency case. He was said to have slumped, and the doctor on duty went to check, and he said he met the guy lying on the seat of the car and that the patient wasn’t breathing.
“He couldn’t see the chest and abdomen moving, then he proceeded to check if there was still pulse and heartbeat which were also absent. He said he still proceeded to do CPR, but there was no response.
“The diagnosis the doctor made was that he was brought in dead, and they said they were not going to take that, and they personally moved him into our facility and dropped him on the floor. I was told that another group of personnel injured the Civil Defence personnel that was on duty on her head.”