He and his wife-to-be had lofty dreams of living fulfilled lives and raising wonderful children together.
The fiance was two months pregnant and their traditional marriage had been fixed for October.
His
fiancee, a graduate nurse, had just secured a job at First Consultant
Hospital, Lagos. He too also just got a marketing job with an oil and
gas company. She was reluctant to go to work on the first day she was
expected to resume on account of ‘morning sickness’ (pregnancy symptoms)
and he encouraged her.
She
did! Lo and behold, her first duty and first patient to nurse on her
first day at work was the late Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian-American,
who brought the deadly Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) to Nigeria. And that
decision put a full stop to the lofty dreams of a promising family.
Welcome to the world of Mr. Dennis Akagha, the husband-to-be of late
Miss Justina Ejelonu, the nurse, who contacted and died of the Ebola
disease from Mr. Sawyer.
In an exclusive, explosive and passionate interview with Vanguard newspaper,
Akagha, who contracted the disease from Miss Justina, was quarantined,
treated, cured and discharged last week, spoke on how and why his
fiancee died, how he contacted and survived the disease, how he was
stigmatized and abandoned by co-workers and neighbours, and why victims
must be given adequate care. He said perhaps, Justina would have
survived with better care.
His thoughts on Ebola and late Justina
The truth is that Justina and I were
not legally married, we were planning for our traditional marriage in
October and she just got this job. She was a qualified graduate nurse
and got the job at the First Consultant Hospital in Lagos. She resumed
duty at the hospital on the 21st of July, while Patrick Sawyer was
admitted at the hospital on the 20th.
He was her first patient. She was
one of the nurses that nursed him. She was pregnant and so her immune
system was weak, which made it easy for her to contract the disease. On
that first day which was a Monday, she was having some pregnancy
symptoms, but I just encouraged her to go because it was her first day
at work. Sawyer was her first patient.
The next day, Tuesday, she didn’t
work on Sawyer. Wednesday and Thursday, she was off. Then on Friday,
Patrick Sawyer died. They didn’t know he had Ebola, it was three days
later that they realized it was Ebola.
When did you know that she had contacted the Ebola virus?
It was after Sawyer died that she
told me she nursed him but that she was on gloves. She even thanked God
that she didn’t have direct contact with him. The fever continued and we
thought it was just pregnancy symptoms and even when she went to her
hospital, they confirmed the same thing. She took drugs and ran tests,
yet it persisted. At night, she was usually cold and feverish and her
body temperature was usually very high. At a point, I began to suspect
that she had contacted the virus. I did some research on the disease and
realised that she was having similar symptoms.
On the 14th of August, it became
serious, she started stooling and vomiting. I had to clean up
everything. All of a sudden, she started bleeding and she started crying
that she had lost the pregnancy. I had to call her relatives and other
people. The bleeding persisted and I had to clean up everything.
While you were attending to her did you wear gloves?
Initially I was not wearing gloves
because I felt I had already been exposed to the virus. But later I
cautioned myself and started wearing nylon on my hands. But I couldn’t
stay away from her. I kept consoling her. Even when I took her to the
hospital, she wanted to hold me and I told her to also consider my
safety. She managed to hold herself and was able to find her way out in a
pool of her blood. We chartered a taxi to the hospital, but first, I
took her to First Consultant Hospital because I felt they should know
more. When we got there, I was directed to IGH, Yaba. I told the taxi
driver to take us there. The driver wasn’t even aware of what was going
on as he took us to Yaba.
Justina was on the floor for 30
minutes before she was attended to. She was screaming that she was going
to die. She was seriously bleeding, she had to come out of the taxi and
lay on the floor. I ran around, trying to get doctors to attend to her.
After everything, they took her in, took her blood samples and the
following day, the result came out that it was Ebola. They washed the
taxi with chlorine and also bathed the taxi driver and I with chlorine
spray.
At that point, the taxi driver knew
what was going on, he couldn’t even take me home because he was so
scared. I had to look for somewhere to pass the night in the hospital.
Early the next morning, I left the Hospital. The taxi driver is alive
today, nothing happened to him. We have been checking on him and the
last time we spoke he told me, he was fine.'
So what happened after you got exposed to the virus?
•Akagha with Dr. Terry
14 days after I was exposed to
Ebola, my temperature rose from the usual 35.2 degrees centigrade to
37.2. The Lagos State government gave me a thermometer the day I dropped
Justina off at the centre. It took them two straight weeks to visit my
home and to disinfect it. Before they came, I had already done the much I
could do. I used bleach and detergent to clean the whole house,
furniture and clothes inclusive.
After that, what happened?
We should be reminded and educated
that a healthy person with Ebola virus cannot get anybody infected,
except if the person is sick and totally down with the virus like what
happened to Sawyer and to my late wife-to-be, Justina. I contacted the
virus because Justina was very sick and I was taking care of her without
any appropriate protection. When we knew what we were dealing with it
was almost too late for me as I had already contacted the virus.
Since you had already visited the centre what else was done for you by the state?
The Lagos State government sent
health professionals to check on me regularly to know how l was doing or
if l had the signs of the virus manifesting. So they used to come
around to check on me. At some point they created scenes with their
visits. I was embarrassed and I was stigmatized. I complained severely
to them that I didn’t like what they were doing. Then, one Saturday they
visited again, I complained about the pains I was beginning to
experience; excruciating pains around my waist. I started praying and
asking people to pray for me.
Before this time, I believed in the
Holy Communion, so I usually take it daily and do feet washing. I was
going to the hospital daily to see late Justina. Initially, I was seeing
her through the window and she would say I should take her out of the
hospital. She complained of lack of care.
Perhaps, Justina would have survived
the virus, if not for the state she was in. Her immune system was down
because she was pregnant. Along the line, she had a miscarriage and lost
the baby due to the Ebola virus disease.
The doctors, who were supposed to do
an evacuation on her couldn’t do it because they claimed that an
evacuation was too risky as she was heavily infected and may pass on the
virus to another person.
Since nothing was done even after
the bleeding had stopped, it led to more complications for her because
the already dead foetus somehow got rotten in the womb and started a
damaging process which led to further complication. Meanwhile, she was
still stooling and vomiting and since nobody could dare to touch her,
she was left on top of her excretions even when she couldn’t do much for
herself due to her weak state. She was given her incisions and other
drugs. I believe if some people survived Justina should have been one of them. At a point, I wished I was a doctor myself; I would have taken the risk of doing the evacuation because it really affected her.
When was the last day you saw Justina?
The Lagos State Ebola quarantine centre and Late Nurse Obi Justina Ejelonu
The last day I saw her, I had to go
inside the ward because she was so unkempt as nobody attended to her. At
that time, the quarantined patients were in the former facility where
there was no water and she had messed up herself again. I had to look
for water to clean her up, change her pampers and arrange her bedding.
Since I was aware of what I was dealing with, I got myself protected
while cleaning up the place. I made sure she looked better than when I
saw her. Justina was shivering the last day I saw her, one side of her
stomach was already swollen, and her legs were also swollen. I prayed
for her. At a point, she needed oxygen and the hospital couldn’t provide it. Her friends had to provide it. That was the last day I saw her.
On Sunday Morning, I called her line
like I usually did before visiting her, but she didn’t pick her calls.
When I got to the hospital, I was told that she was dead.
Was she taking your calls while she was at the facility?
Yes, in fact she called me that last
day and I knew she was going to give up, because she was saying some
funny things. She said I should tell my people to go and meet her father
so as to finalize our marriage plans, that she’s leaving that place.
From what you have said, were you not scared that you may die as well from the disease?
I personally don’t believe in taking
medications. I had the mentality that I wasn’t sick. I told the
government what I was experiencing. On the day they came to pick me up
for treatment, all of a sudden, my temperature went back to normal. The
shivering and pains were all gone. So they decided that they would be
checking on me. But it got to a point people stopped selling things to
me. It was as if the government got a report that I shouldn’t be around.
So, they came and said I should go with them that they wanted to take
my blood sample. I went with them and they took my blood sample, I was
kept in a ward known as the ‘suspected ward.’
The result came out and it was
positive. I was then taken to a confined ward. One of the doctors from
UNICEF, a white lady told me that they were having issues with the
results and that they would have to re-run the tests. They did the tests
again and it was still positive. I told them that it wasn’t my result
and that I was healthy. I was even doing my usual exercises (press-ups)
every morning. I kept telling them that I wasn’t sick. They took my
blood sample the third time. That night, they told me that I tested
negative in the last result and that I don’t have any reason to remain
there. That was how I was discharged.
While you were going through all these at the facility what happened to your job?
I was a marketer in an oil and gas
company. I worked on commission basis, but at a point, I realized that
people were not calling me and when I called they won’t pick my calls.
Even the person that I report directly refused to pick my calls and also
refused to associate with me. Justina and I just got our jobs, she got
hers at First Consultant Hospital and I got mine as a marketer with the
oil and gas company.
Do you think that the government or First Consultant Hospital should compensate Justina’s family?
Although, no amount of money they
give to the family will bring her back I think the government owes
Justina’s family a lot because she died trying to save a situation.
Justina died in active service as her death wasn’t natural.
So how did your status change from positive to negative?
I was reading a book on healing and
taking of the Holy Communion. So I learnt to take Holy Communion
morning, afternoon and night. I also engaged myself in feet-washing
every day before going to bed. The Almighty God saved me; the Holy
Spirit healed me. It wasn’t as though l didn’t fall sick as l had direct
contact with Justina but the Almighty God healed me. When I was
discharged, I got to my house on Saturday evening and spent two hours
the next day, Sunday, thanking God on my own. I didn’t go to church or
anywhere because of the already established stigma but today I can
confidently attend church activities because I guess they all know I’m
free now. I know my faith and belief healed me. God also worked for me
apart from the fact that my immune system is also working. I believe I
got healed also because friends prayed for me.
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