Chilling details of Kano corps member’s last hours: Strange injection gave her rashes, twisted her tongue – Sisters

December 3, 2016

Ifedolapo Oladepo

Friday Olokor and Kunle Falayi

Details have emerged of the last hours of 26-year-old Ifedolapo Oladepo, a first class Transport Management graduate of the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, who died at the National Youth Service Corps camp in Kano State on Tuesday.

A Facebook post by the deceased’s elder sister, Oyeyode Abimbola Inioluwa, gave an insight into a string of events which culminated in the death of Ifedolapo at the camp clinic, where she allegedly suffered neglect in the hands of medical officials.

According to Inioluwa, who is a nurse herself, having realised she was not being attended to because officials thought she was just pretending to be ill in order to avoid drills, Ifedolapo resorted to placing calls to her.

 “You called me five hours to your death and told me to start coming as the NYSC doctors were not doing anything for you. They thought you were pretending, you did not want to go for parade so they did not attend to you. When you started calling people from home, they eventually gave you an injection,” Inioluwa wrote in her eulogy to her sister.

But apparently, things went downhill immediately after that injection.

“You called me again that you noticed a lot of rashes on your body, (you said) that I should speak with the doctor, who refused to talk to me. You called five minutes later and told me your tongue was twisting,” Inioluwa wrote.

It was learnt that when Ifedolapo’s situation seemed to deteriorate after an injection she was given, officials at the camp clinic sent out all her friends.

But Ifedolapo was said to have maintained contact with Inioluwa through the phone.

The deceased told her sister that she should help make an arrangement for a flight.

She said, “I called immediately(and) they told me Abuja flight is Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I told you to tell anybody in the clinic that I am a nurse (so) they should allow me to speak with them.

“A male nurse took phone from you and told me you are having an anaphylactic reaction and they would watch you for just one hour and transfer you to the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital but alas they did not transfer you until five hours later when they noticed you were restless and calling people at home.”

Inioluwa said she eventually went to the park along with Ifedolapo’s younger sister, and boarded a bus to Kano so they could go and pick her.

She said on their way, she placed a call to the clinic officials in the Kano camp to beg them to take her sister to the teaching hospital.

According to her, rather than take her to the teaching hospital, the deceased was taken to a general hospital at Gwazo, where she was offered no treatment.

By that time, Inioluwa said Ifedolapo’s phone had been taken away. They claimed she needed to rest.

The last she heard from the deceased was at 5pm as their journey to Kano took 16 hours.

At 3am, she received the heart-breaking call that her younger sister had passed on.

“Without any doctor in the hospital to assist you, the only nurse on duty told me she tried her best,her best of staying beside you when death was taking you away because there was nothing to use. From that 3am till I got to Kano, I was hoping it would only be a mix up somewhere. (But) I got to Kano and met you at Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital Mortuary,” Inioluwa said.

In another Facebook post by Ifedolapo’s younger sister, Kemisola Oladepo, she gave an insight into the anguish of the family.

“Death, why did you come into my household and take my sister away? Ifedolapo, when death came knocking at your door, why did you open for him?” she wrote.

According to Kemisola, she was at home when she heard Ifedolapo had malaria and she placed a call to her. She said she prayed for her sister over the phone before she was informed by their elder sister that they needed to go to the hospital in Kano where she had been transferred to.

“My sister begged and begged the doctor on duty to refer you to the teaching hospital,but they kept saying you’re for the Federal Government so they’ll have to watch you first before you were referred. They gave you an unknown injection which immediately your body reacted to, they begged for you to be taken to the teaching hospital, the doctors turned off your phone and sent your friends out. You should have held on for us to get there maybe it would have been better. We never had the agreement that you’d leave so early, Ifedolapo.”

She described her elder sister as her best friend, one with whom she did everything.

But she placed the blame for the death of her sister squarely on the doorstop of the NYSC.

“I still didn’t believe it until NYSC brought your dead body down home. We didn’t even get to see your body in the khaki and you were buried in it. NYSC killed you with their negligence and stupid student doctor that knows nothing, who gave you the injection, saw how your body reacted to it and turned off your phones.”

The deceased was buried in Oshogbo on Thursday.

However, there is no official comment from the NYSC authorities over Ifedolapo’s death.

Another death of First Class graduate in Zamfara camp

Two days after Ifedolapo’s death, tragedy struck again at the Zamfara NYSC camp, where another First Class graduate of Petroleum Engineering from the University of Uyo, Ukeme Monday, fell ill and died.

One of his classmates, Patrick Immo, noted in a post on Facebook that the deceased was so brilliant that he won four awards at graduation.

But he said Monday was so devastated by his posting to Zamfara that he even considered redeployment.

His illness he has not been disclosed by NYSC authorities since his death on Thursday.

In a reaction, the NYSC Director of Press and Public Relations, Mrs. Abosede Aderibigbe, said the corps’ officials in  Kano denied any neglect, saying that she was treated and put under observation after taking blood samples to investigate the real cause of the sickness.

She said, “It is unfortunate that this thing happened and we sympathise with the family of the deceased corps member. The story we were told was that she reported on camp on November 25 and that same day, she reported that she wasn’t feeling fine. She was treated and allowed to go. On November 28, she came back and complained that she was not getting better.

By the time it was discovered that they cannot handle her case, she was rushed to the hospital where she died. But the NYSC DG has sent the Director (Corps Welfare and Inspectorate) and two other staff to Kano to go and find out what happened because we have received the death certificate and the death certificate said she died of infection.”

There has been no comment on Monday’s death.

That was what was written in the death certificate. We really sympathise with the family and I am sure the DG will go and lay a condolence visit when we go to Osun State.

The NYSC has sent a powerful team to go and investigate and find out what really happened. It is then that the DG will make a statement. But the tram went yesterday and a I think that by tomorrow (today, Saturday), they should come back to give us a report. We’ve asked them to go to the Hospital, NYSC camp and ask everybody that is involved in this matter what really happened.