Rivers doctors abandon duty posts as kidnappers go on the rampage
Lucky doctors recall close shave with abductors
For medical doctors in Rivers State, the fear of kidnappers has become the beginning of wisdom. The medical practitioners have lately become the targets of kidnappers who insist that heavy ransoms must be paid before their victims are released. Last year, no fewer than 21 doctors were abducted, and that has been followed up with the abduction of two others in the New Year.
As would be expected, the situation has resulted in panic and anxiety among medical doctors in the state. They are now living in fear over kidnappers’ shift of attention to medical doctors. According to the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), so many others who managed to escape abduction were either seriously wounded or had their vehicles damaged with bullets from kidnappers’ guns.
The recent abduction of two medical doctors and an attempt by gunmen to abduct a doctor from the theatre few weeks ago did not only give doctors the impression that some people were after their lives, it has also forced them to either walk in disguise or go into hiding all together. The situation has also made many of them located in rural communities to flee from their duty posts to the detriment of thousands of rural dwellers in need of urgent medical attention.
The continued attempt by abductors to capture more medical doctors for ransom had led to a three-day warning strike embarked upon by doctors in the state from January 14 to January 16. It was also a solidarity protest for two of their colleagues who were kidnapped. The warning strike was also meant to draw the attention of security agents in the state to the need to be more proactive in securing the release of the victims and protect those who are yet to be kidnapped.
However, the two doctors have regained freedom, though their family members refused to speak to the press on how they were released. But Doctor Green, the state chairman of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), said the families of the two victims who regained freedom could not speak because of security reason.
He noted that kidnappers have continued to follow his members around. “As I am talking to you now, few days after the two doctors regained their freedom, two other doctors escaped being kidnapped; one of them sustained serious injury and they are now hiding. I don’t know what kidnappers are benefiting from kidnapping doctors”, he lamented.
Abandoned health centres
A visit to some health centres in rural and urban areas of the state showed that many of the doctors residing in rural communities had all relocated to major towns and cities for safety. And those who live in towns and cities also have to disguise when attending to patients. They must be doubly sure of the identity of the person at the other end now before responding to “call duty”, particularly at odd hours.
Doctor Fred Nwabueze, who had to flee from his duty post in Emohua community, said he had no choice but to run for dear life.
He said: “My brother, we are no longer safe to render service to humanity. I don’t know why kidnappers are after us. We are not money-bag politicians or businessmen. Ours is to save lives.
“Many of us even struggle to pay our children’s school fees. There are times they send our children out of the classroom. If you see where some of us live, you will know that we don’t have money. The kidnappers should ask about our living condition before they take us as easy prey.
“We pay house rents like any other person. We also receive quit notice from landlords. As I am talking to you, every doctor in Rivers State is in hiding. And where doctors must see patients, they disguise. Our stethoscope and mask which give our identity away as doctors are now folded inside our bags. That is the condition we have found ourselves in.”
Another doctor, Abuah Temple, who was working in one of the Ikwerre
communities before he ran away after an attempt to kidnap him failed, said: “I had parked my car at the roadside and was coming out from a house where I had gone to check a patient. As I was coming out and trying to enter my car, some gunmen forced their way into the car and ordered me to join their vehicle.
“As soon as they pushed me inside their car, they blindfolded me and zoomed off. After about 10 minutes of painful ride, I heard gunshots and there was anxiety among them inside the vehicle. I didn’t know that it was naval officers who were escorting their boss that had engaged them in a shoot out.
“Although I was blindfolded, I sensed that the vehicle had stopped and my abductors were jumping out of it. One of the naval officers then opened the car and brought me out. That was when I realised that I was being rescued by the naval officers.
“But it didn’t end there. One of the abductors who escaped later called me. He said I should pay the ransom or I would be abducted again. When I made plans with the police to arrest him through the line he was calling me, one of the politicians in the state showed up to release him. We are in danger and I am sorry that if this continues, the public will suffer the pain more than us.”
Govt assures doctors of safety
The Commissioner of Health, Dr. Theophilus Odegme, who was a special guest at an NMA meeting on the ceaseless incidents of kidnapping in Rivers State, told his professional colleagues that there was no need to panic or embark on long strike because of what was happening to them.
Calling on members of the public to help the police in the war against kidnapping in the state, Odegme said: “The government is on top of the situation. It is not everything I will tell you here because it is a security issue. I have interacted with the Commissioner of Police but what they are asking for is public cooperation to do their job.
“I am worried that the kidnappers have shifted their focus to doctors. But what we are telling them is that these people are not rich. They are public servants and directing attention to them is wrong.”
The President, Association of Residents Doctors, University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH), Dr. Mike Achor, told our correspondent in an interview that he was yet to know the reason why kidnappers were after medical doctors. He said in the past one year, doctors in the state have been living in anxiety and have had to disguise themselves to carry out their essential duties.
He said the effect is that doctors who were always seen among the people are beginning to hide. He pleaded with kidnappers to know that doctors have no money to pay ransom.
Achor added: “The issue of kidnapping has become consistent for the past one year, and the reason for kidnapping doctors is something one cannot tell.
“Doctors do not have money. How many of us are driving new cars? The present situation will end up destroying the health system, especially primary health care.
“Each doctor has his or her patients, and as a doctor, you are responsible to them. The effect of this is that doctors are beginning to hide. People can’t knock on your door that their sons are vomiting or having one problem or the other and expect you to come immediately. You will not follow them, especially at night. That is the situation now in Rivers State.”
Worrisome trend
Recalling what doctors in the state had passed through since last year, the chairman of Rivers State branch of the NMA, Dr. Furo, said the situation was worrisome. He regretted that for all the 21 doctors abducted last year, no suspect was arrested or prosecuted. He accused the Rivers State Police Command of not doing enough to arrest the perpetrators of this heinous crime.
Green said government, security agencies and the general public must come to doctors’ rescue before the health system in Rivers State collapsed. He said most of the doctors in the rural areas had started moving out of their duty posts, adding that doctors in the state no longer identify themselves as doctors except where it is absolutely necessary, for fear of being kidnapped.
Narrating further some of the experiences of his colleagues and the position of the NMA over the development, Green said: “It appears that doctors have been targeted for kidnapping. It became more apparent last years when about 21 doctors were kidnapped. There were also those who escaped attempts to kidnap them and many of our colleagues got injured while battling to escape from kidnappers. Some had their cars sprayed with bullets, others escaped with bullet wounds. Now we are beginning to see what happened last year repeat itself.
“Recently, one of our colleagues was abducted. Her car was riddled with bullets and her children were all toddlers. You can imagine the trauma they would be passing through knowing that their mother is in kidnappers’ den. While we were still shouting over her abduction, another doctor, a physician, was kidnapped. Because we don’t want what happened last year to repeat itself, our members decided to call an emergency meeting where we agreed to go on a three-day warning strike, which is over now.
“Because of the outbreak of Lassa fever, however, we decided to create a window for people to be given attention, especially the indigent members of the public. However, after the expiration of the warning strike, our members went back to work.
“On Monday last week, we had a meeting to review the whole situation. We discovered that apart from the two doctors, another one was attacked at the theatre room. They wanted to kidnap him and they shot him in the abdomen.
“We are now taking our protest to the public. It is the public that would protect us. We are saying this not because we are peculiar or special people but because of the kind of service we render to the public. If you kidnap one doctor, you have kidnapped 3,500 patients. The ratio today is 3,500 patients to one doctor.
“So, when a doctor is kidnapped, you have deprived 3,500 patients of access to health service. It means that a pregnant woman in a village who needs the services of the kidnapped doctor, will not have access to the doctor and she may die. That means a man who has a gunshot wound will die because he may not have access to his doctor.”
He said that doctors were not shouting for help and police protection because they think that other victims of kidnapping did not go to school but because of the kind of service they render to the public. He said doctors had agreed to carry out serious advocacy to inform those who see their abduction as an easy way of make cheap money that doctors have no such money. He reasoned that any kidnapper who accepts ransom from a doctor accepts blood-stained money because some souls might have died in the course of kidnapping a doctor”.
Asked whether the attention on doctors could be because some doctors earlier kidnapped paid huge sums as ransom, Green said among the 21 doctors kidnapped last year, only two paid ransoms, which were borrowed from friends and sympathisers.
He said: ”I can tell you that out of the 21 doctors kidnapped, not more two paid ransom. Even the men who tried to pay gathered some money through friends. When they kidnap a doctor, they believed that the doctor has money, so they go on torturing the doctor. Needlessly, they shoot them and some were hit with rod.
“The doctor that died last year when they tortured him, it was because the kidnappers thought he had money. So they hit his head with a rod and that was how he died.
“He has a hospital but the hospital was dying because he borrowed money to run it. They didn’t know that he had no money. A similar thing happened to a doctor that was kidnapped last year. They tortured him and when the maltreatment became unbearable, he agreed to look for some cash. The family negotiated with some people to save him, and what he would earn for three years was what they arrived at. The family got the money and paid.
“When he came back, the family told him how the money was borrowed and that they took that decision because they didn’t want him to die. So he has to prepare to pay back, and that is what he is suffering today, struggling to pay back. Even his children’s school fees, he cannot afford to pay. He even came to the NMA to borrow money and we could not assist him because we have no money in our account.
“But we regret that for the 21 doctors kidnapped last year, nobody has been arrested or jailed. That means that the security authorities have not done enough. They should please help to secure us because if these criminals push us out of service, to be sincere, the society would suffer the most.
“We are also appealing to the local government chairmen to assist us. While we know that security is outside their control, they should look for ways to protect the doctors at the grassroots.
“The politicians have surrounded themselves with security personnel and the bank manager has a lot of security gadgets in his or her office. The doctor is the man who lives among the people.”
