Dr Ameyo Adadevoh has gained post-mortem national and international accolades for her role in stopping the Liberian-American Patrick Sawyer, the first known Ebola carrier in Nigeria. She was unknown before her heroic and sad death, but the arrival of late Patrick Sawyer in Lagos state on July 20, 2014 and the role she played to ensure that the deadly disease did not become a national disaster shot Dr. Adadevoh into the global limelight.
But it was not just Dr Adadevoh who paid the ultimate price for her profession and country; there were also nurses who died as a result of contact with the ill-fated sojourner, who brought the highly infectious and swift killing virus with no known cure to First Consultant Medical Centre (FCMC). He infested Adedevoh and Nurse Justina Ejelonu among others.
However, little has been heard about the young nurse after then. It was learnt that it was Nurse Ejelonu’s first day in the employment with the FCMC, and Sawyer was apparently the first and last litmus test of her nursing carrier. Sadly, she did not live to tell the story.
She died along with other members of staff of the hospital who also died of the virus which broke out in Lagos and Port Harcourt, Rivers state, killing a total of eight persons, including two doctors.
But colleagues of the late nurse are not happy that while the tragic event brought fame and whipped up accolades as well awards for the brave Dr. Adadevoh locally and internationally, nothing was said or done about Ejelonu.
They said though government officials at all levels, corporate bodies, and members of Nigerian society, rightly praised the late doctor for making the supreme sacrifice for her country and for her rare courage, they lamented that not much was being said about Ms Ejelonu and others who sacrificed their lives.
It was against the backdrop of this dissatisfaction that members of her professional body, under the aegis of “Nursing World,” Nigeria took it upon themselves to reorganize her sacrifice, celebrate and immortalize her in their own way. They instituted a monthly “Justina Ejelonu Memorial Award” (JEMA), to keep the name of their friend and professional colleague alive and to also tell the world that nursing profession also has its fair share of the Ebola Virus tragedy and should also be reorganised.
The award meant exclusively for nursing students in Nigerian Nursing Schools, was instituted this year and has had two editions, January and February, 2015. Deserving students from the University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT) and School of Nursing Agbor in Rivers and Delta states respectively won the first editions.
Speaking at the second ceremony in UNPORT recently, spokesman of the group, Nurse Jude Nwobi, said the move was meant to advocate and project nursing profession in the country. He said they are of the view that despite the crucial position of nursing care in health care delivery, it receives little or no recognition in Nigerian society. He said there is the need to strike a change and balance.
Nwobi said, “We instituted Justina Ejelonu scholarship award in memory of a nurse who passed away during the Ebola outbreak at the First Consultant Hospital in Lagos state. Every month we give out N50,000 to a deserving nursing student.
“Every month a student nurse gets the money, that way we honour our departed colleague for her sacrificial contribution and bravery to nursing profession. She did all her best during the Ebola outbreak, if not for people like her; Nigeria would have slipped into a catastrophic situation.
“We are doing all of these to honour her memory and keep her alive so that everybody gets to know the story that Justina died doing what she loved to do-keeping best nursing practice.
“The award was instituted January this year and we hope it to keep it up until the government does the needful. We believe that those that paid the price of this deadly scourge with their lives ought to be honoured without any form of discrimination, they should be immortalised but it look like nothing is happening, nobody is saying anything, particularly about the nurses that died in this. All you hear in the whole lot of professionals that died is Dr. Adadevoh, a nurse like our own Justina died, an auxiliary nurse also died, most members of the team that received the index case died on the line of duty but all you hear about is Dr. Adadevoh.
“In a hospital setting, everybody knows that there is no way she should have fought the battle of late Patrick Sawyer alone to save the rest of Nigerians, but the way she is singled out made it look as if she was the only sacrificial victim on the line.
“We work as a team in hospitals, when one team member is singled out in such a situation, it makes other team member awkward, this is exactly what we are trying to do with this award.
“Let the world know that the nursing profession also lost their passionate own in that tragedy and that Justina Ejeleonu was part of the team that gave their lives to save the rest of Nigeria from the catastrophe and they all deserve to be honoured.” He insisted.
The nurse who spoke with passion on the award explained how winners emerge: “Every month we have nurses go on our website to apply for the scholarship. Automated system is used to picks the school, names of applicants from the School are sent to the school’s Head of Department (HOD), if it is a university or the Registrar if it is a college of Nursing or Principal if it is a school of Nursing.
“It is this school’s authority that now sets up a committee to decide who gets the award, depending on the academic performance of the students, among other factors. The school then notifies us after they have concluded their selection process.”
The winner of the award 23 year-old Blessing Darlington, 500-level Nursing student of UNIPORT, thanked the organizers of the award for their good thought and promised to make Ms Ejelonu her role model and take nursing profession to a higher level.
“I love nursing profession that is why I am doing this course, I wish to be a better nurse than Justina to make nursing profession an envious one that people will crave for. I advise my other colleagues to emulate Justina’s bravery and sacrifice by giving their nursing care without reservations.”
