This is the sad story of a Nigerian woman whose kidney was illegally harvested in Italy as published by Daily Sun
Ms Julie Osamese felt a little feverish when she walked into the
Ospedale Maria Vittoria Cibrario Hospital in Turin, Italy sometime in
November 2008. Her only complaint was a slight increase in body
temperature, and that she explained to the doctor who attended to her.
Tests were conducted, following which she was given medication to use
and instructed to return for evaluation after a week.
But her second visit to the hospital could be described as the
greatest mistake of her life. For this Nigerian lady, it marked the
beginning of years of woe.
It was the beginning of years of trauma
during which she was moved to six other hospitals. She eventually ended
up in a mental home, despite being mentally stable. Some of the
hospitals Osamese was taken to include Amedeo Di Savoia Svizzerra and
Ospedale San Giovanni Bossco.
According to the chairperson of the House of Representatives
Committee on Diaspora Affairs, Rita Orji, who recently led other members
of the committee to investigate Osamese’s disheartening story, the
woman, in her 30s and a legal immigrant in Italy, was, on her follow-up
visit to the Ospedale Maria Vittoria Cibrario hospital, given drugs
which made her dizzy.
It was gathered that as she complained to the
medical personnel who attended to her, she was tied to the bed despite
her protests. By the time she woke up, part of her buttocks had
allegedly been chopped off, and her kidney tampered with. That was how
she lost control of her bladder, leading to uncontrollable urination, it
was gathered.
Narrating the inhuman treatment meted out to Osamese, the lawmaker
said:
“After taking the drugs for one week, she came back to report how
she was feeling. On that day, she was asked if she came to the hospital
alone, and she said, ‘yes’ innocently without knowing the reason why
that question was put across to her. That marked, the beginning of her
paralysis. She was asked to lie down that they were going to give her
some medication. Within two, three minutes, she was approached with a
mixture in a cup and she drank it, believing that it was for the fever
she complained of. But she became dizzy and she was telling them how she
felt. But they said there was no problem.
“Suddenly, the team of doctors came around and tied her legs and her
hands on the bed and she started shouting, ‘why are you tying me’? She
said one of the doctors responded that she could shout at the top of her
voice, but that nobody would know what was being done. That was how
they faced her down and gave her injection on her base bone. After the
injection, she passed out. When she finally regained consciousness, she
saw that the lower part of the buttocks on both sides had been chopped
off, to the extent that the bones in her buttocks had cracked and she
saw the pieces of the bones. Also her bladder was disengaged from the
source with urine pouring out uncontrollably. In fact, she woke up on a
catheter and a big plaster by the region of her kidney.
“They started moving Madam Julie from one hospital to the other. It
is the norm that when you are being transferred to any hospital, the
ambulance in which a patient is transferred goes with a medical report.
But in Julie’s case, nothing like that was done. They dumped her into
one ambulance to drop her in one home or the other without attaching her
medical history.
They kept her, thinking she would die. At a stage, she
was only living on prayers. They finally dropped her at the seventh
medical Centre. During our investigations, I asked what the reasons for
moving her from one place to the other were. There is no answer to that.
What they were telling us is that she is mentally Ill. She is diabetic.
But I want to tell you that all these stories are unfounded. No one has
the confirmation of these health conditions they told us she suffers
from based on medical ground.
“On our arrival at that place, we conducted a test and found that
Julie is not diabetic. The scan that was carried out on her, and we have
the result, shows that her kidney was tampered with. This is what the
woman has been shouting about for the past eight years, and nobody seems
to believe her. Today it is Julie, tomorrow I don’t know who it will
be. On their final stop, they dumped her in a mental home, a woman of
thirty something years, dumped in a mental home that harbours old men
and women that are demented.”
Also corroborating Orji’s story, another member of the committee who
represents Itu/Ibiono Ibom federal constituency, Henry Okon -Archibong, a
medical doctor, explained that Osamese can never walk again, no thanks
to the havoc inflicted on her.
“From what happened, they might have tried to give her anaesthesia
before they harvested the kidney. In doing that, they damaged the lumber
and sacred nerves. So, there is no way Julie can walk again. Julie has
been paralysed and the issue of walking has nothing to do with what we
are calling for. She has to be compensated, the medical doctors that
participated in what led to her current situation have to be dealt with
as the law permits,” he said.
Indeed, the committee is demanding that the Italian government
investigate Osamese’s case with a view to fishing out the medical
personnel whose highly unprofessional conduct led to the loss of one of
her kidneys and her permanent confinement to a wheelchair. The lawmakers
are also asking for the highest form of compensation and a complete
rehabilitation of the mother of one, who they said have been the subject
of several protests by the Nigerian community in Italy.
Orji declared: “The action that will satisfy us as lawmakers starts
from the whole world condemning the injustice meted out to an innocent
person. We are saying that there should be a holistic compensation and a
new medical team should conduct an analysis of Madam Julie’s situation
and proffer the best way to get her life back on track. She has lost
hope on the medical doctors around her. So, I will advise that they have
to look for another medical team that are not from Turin to carry out
this job.”
The lawmakers also called on the minister of Foreign Affairs,
Geoffrey Onyeama to investigate the role of the staff of the Nigerian
High Commission in Italy, whom they accused of negligence.
“You can’t
believe that when the relations of this lady were at the hospital, a
woman named Deborah and another man called Ifeanyi, the woman told them
what she had been put through. She gave them documents to back her
claims and told these relatives of hers to run to the Nigerian High
Commission in Rome, to inform them of what happened. Those documents
were given to one Madam Martina and Mr. Folorunsho who are staff of the
commission.
But no one asked after her (Osamese) since 2009. They never
went to visit her. They didn’t even keep the documents handed over to
them. When we demanded for them, they denied ever receiving the
documents. For us, the recklessness of the Nigeria High Commission in
Italy as at then, caused the terrible situation we see. Assuming they
intervened on time, the situation of this woman will not be this bad,”
Orji added.