Ololade Adeyanju/
Award-winning investigative journalist, Fisayo Soyombo, has alleged that the Kwara State government failed to disclose a COVID-19 case in the state until the patient died on Thursday.
Soyombo in a series of tweets via @fisayosoyombo, further alleged that the deceased was hurriedly buried yesterday without a post mortem as part of efforts to conceal the real cause of death.
According to him, the medical staff who had contact with the deceased are currently in isolation and taking chloroquine prophylaxis.
He also claimed that the Accident and Emergency unit of the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital where the patient died had been shut down by the hospital management.
Read his account below:
On Thursday, there was a COVID-19 death in Ilorin. But it won’t make it to @NCDCgov‘s official count because the powers that be did everything to cover it up.
The bigwigs at the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH) knew. The state govt did, too.
A grand cover-up.
After his death, they ensured the body wasn’t tested for the virus. The deceased was buried on Fri without scientific confirmation of COVID-19, but two hospital staff have been giving me deatils of events that led to his death.
You know why? They, like others, feel unsafe.
After returning from the UK, the deceased initially self-isolated in Lagos, before his professor-of-medicine-friend invited him to Ilorin, where he privately received treatment.
On Day 13, his condition worsened. so he was taken to UITH.
He was to be moved to the isolation ward but there was an “order from above” for him to remain at the A&E.
Until he started showing severe COVID-19 symptoms, the doctors who attended to him didn’t know it was the virus; this was a patient of their bosses.
He died shortly after.
Meanwhile, he’d had contact with doctors, nurses and other patients.
The state govt & the hospital both rejected this as a COVID-19 case.
The state govt claims the death was due to “respiratory illness” while the hospital says it was from “food poisoning”.
However:
1. The ambulance that evacuated the corpse was not allowed back into the hospital premises.
2. Doctors, nurses & pharmacists who potentially had contact with him are now on chloroquine prophylaxis & isolation.
3. The Medical Emergency has been shut down & fumigation initiated.
Two professors of medicine — the one who housed the diseased & the one who pulled the strings to halt his transfer to the isolation ward — betrayed their colleagues.
This potential COVID spread in UITH was preventable.
May ‘man know man’ not kill us in this country!