FCT orders hospitals to treat gunshot victims first, ask for police reports later

The FCT authorities have issued a directive to all hospitals in the nation’s capital to prioritise the treatment of gunshot victims over the demand for police reports.

This is part of the FCT administration’s resolution to set up police posts in all hospitals in the city to facilitate the process of obtaining police reports for accident victims.

The FCT Mandate Secretary for Health Services and Environment, Adedolapo Fasawe, revealed these developments while receiving the report of a 10-man investigative panel established by the minister, Nyesom Wike, to probe the death of Ms. Greatness Olorunfemi, a victim of Abuja ‘one-chance’ robbery two months ago.

The panel’s report, which was released on Wednesday, stated that Olorunfemi was already dead when she arrived at the Maitama General Hospital, contrary to some claims that she died hours later after being denied treatment by doctors for lack of a police report.

The panel’s chairman, Prof. Aminu Muhammad, who led the members to submit the report, said the investigation was thorough, involving interviews with all parties related to the incident.

However, Muhammad said three parties failed to cooperate with the panel’s invitation.

He said the security officer on duty verified that the body in the vehicle was lifeless, while the driver of the vehicle that conveyed the body told the panel that he presumed that the body was dead.

The panel dismissed the claim that the victim bled to death, arguing that there was no evidence of blood from the location where the victim was picked up to the vehicle that took her to the hospital.

The panel cleared the medical staff of the Maitama General Hospital of any misconduct, stating that there was no evidence suggesting that the medical officers demanded a police report before attending to the victim.

Muhammad said Ms. Olorunfemi was attended to for 40 seconds after being brought to the hospital at 8:35:10 pm, and according to CCTV camera footage, she was checked at 8:35:50 pm, 8:39:00 pm, and 8:41:00 pm, respectively.

He said the viral video on social media, showing the victim in a sitting position, did not indicate any sign of life. Although the panel did not perform an autopsy on Olorunfemi’s body, it said the cause of her death was strangulation.

The panel also considered the testimony of a witness who claimed to be in the same vehicle as the deceased during a national television interview unreliable, citing inconsistencies in the date she gave as the incident date.

In its recommendations, the panel stressed the need for improving hospital infrastructure in the capital territory.

The panel pointed out that hospital services are inadequate, with deficits in both equipment and personnel affecting service delivery.

While admitting that the medical officers did not follow professional standards by examining the victim in the vehicle and open space within the hospital instead of putting her on a stretcher and providing private treatment in an E&E unit, the panel recommended training and retraining for medical personnel employed by the FCT.

The panel also recommended that the police launch an investigation into the matter and that a detailed autopsy be done to ascertain the definitive cause and exact time of death.

In her comments, the Mandate Secretary, Fasawe, said the panel’s report has debunked the social media allegation that the deceased was alive when she was brought to the hospital.

She noted that the report showed that it was clear that Ms. Olorunfemi was a victim of insecurity, and this had no relation to the emergency response treatment provided by Maitama Hospital.

However, she offered an apology to the victim’s family for the way the body was attended to in the vehicle, acknowledging that it fell outside professional requirements.

Fasawe said: “I assure you that we are looking into all the deficiencies in our systems and we will be attending to these failures.