On Monday, it was the hoot from a commercial bus that headed for the motor park to begin the day’s business that jolted Blessing Ojo, a single mother, from sleep at her residence in Owo-Ope area of Osogbo, Osun State capital.
The petty trader and mother of three, who lived adjacent to St James Primary School ‘B’, embraced the day with another hope that things would get better.
After attending to her basic house chores, including fetching water for her children to bath, the Bayelsa State returnee woke them up and got them dressed for school, following which the children crossed the road to the other side where their school, St James Primary School, was located.
Before they entered the gate, the children, in their usual habit, had waved to their mother. But by the time they returned home around 1:30 in the afternoon, two of them were very weak and feeble, forcing her to ask what was wrong with them.
One of the children named Taye responded that they had a meal of rice and egg during the break session of the school, which resulted in some complications.
One of Blessing’s children, who spoke with our correspondent after her mother had authorised him to speak, said the food vendor of O’Meal provided a meal of rice and egg which the school’s pupils ate for lunch.
He said: “They gave us food in Primary 3. We noticed that the egg on the food was smelling, but we ate it like that. A few hours later, I started vomiting and vomited till we closed and until I met my mother.”
Blessing, who sells fried potatoes, said: “God is to be praised because He was the one that resuscitated my two children affected by food poisoning.
“I am a single mother and my children are my companion. On Monday, they came back from school weak and sick. I have three children in the school, two of them returned weak after vomiting repeatedly and passing loose stool. They lost their strength and energy because of the complications, and I felt disturbed.
“Fear further gripped me when the children of my neighbour complained about the same problems my children were battling with. We asked them what they took and the eldest of them, who is in Primary 3, said they ate the rice and egg provided by the vendor of O’Meal.
“We tried to give them quick aid around 2:30 pm but it did not work. When it was getting out of hand, I took them out of the room to the front of the house and started shouting.
“A crowd gathered in front of the house and later I was advised to take them to a hospital behind the house.
“The hospital’s bill is cheap and the owner, Dokky, has been treating children from this neighbourhood very well. Although there are other private hospitals around, their services are expensive.
“The Primary Health Care centre at Sabo is not far, but I was told that some parents whose children were affected by the food poisoning left the place for one reason or the other.”
Responding to the allegation that some parents might have collected money from some people to blackmail the government’s food programme, Blessing yelled at our correspondent, saying “I never collected any money from anyone. I relocated from Bayelsa to Osun, so I don’t know anybody.
“Other children in the school who did not eat the egg provided were not affected. Even pupils from St James School ‘A’, close to the school of my children which is ‘B’, were not affected.
“Officials of the state government from Abere came to meet us at Dokky’s place. They promised that they would settle the bill. So nobody should tell us that food poisoning on our children is fabricated.”
Blessing also said she had instructed her children not to eat anything from the school again. “I will be preparing their food for them at home,” she said.
Another distraught mother named Rashidat Wasiu, who has two kids in Primary One and Two, corroborated Blessing’s position that they suspected the egg that was served the pupils was the cause of the complications suffered by their children.
Rashidat said it was one of her two children that ate the egg.
She said: “When I asked them about the food they ate, the younger one told me that he gave his elder brother the egg that was given to him because he didn’t like the smell; meaning that the elder brother took two eggs.
“The elder brother experienced the complications, vomiting and running stool. He was weak and could not talk. The younger one was fine because he only took the rice given to them.”
“It took the efforts of Dokky who has his hospital close to this place to revive our children. He is our hero. He really tried for us.
“When we got to the hospital, we met about 13 other parents at his place. He infused them with drips and gave them injections.
“Government people later came to the place to sympathise with us and they said they would pay our bills. They told us not to worry about payment because they would take care of it.”
On her part, another parent, Mrs Irewumi Omolara, said she refused to take her children to Dokky’s hospital because he is not certified. She however invited a relation of hers who is certified to treat her children at home.
Yet another parent whose child was a victim recalled her son’s ordeal, noting that the seven-year-old only narrowly escaped death.
Kafaya Lukman, who sells oranges, said: “I went out to hawk oranges, but when I returned around 2:30 pm, my father-in-law told me that I should not go out again because my son had been vomiting blood.
“I was scared because my father-in-law tried first aid on him but he was weak and was running loose stool. When his health had still not improved around 3 pm, we took him to the primary health care centre in Sabo but they told us that they did not have what was needed to treat him. They said we should go to the teaching hospital.
“We met other parents at the centre but we were all referred to teaching hospital. I guess that when they observed the prevalent complaints from about six parents we met there, they were afraid of handling them because they were all very weak.
“We went to Dokky, who was another alternative in the neighborhood, because at that point, we were about six parents whose children were affected.
“We arrived at his single room hospital and he charged us N4,000. We told him to go ahead with the boy’s treatment. He gave him drip and then injection, which went a long way in stopping the vomit and loose stool. He was our saver.”
Dokky, however, declined comments when our correspondent sought his reaction, warning him (correspondent) not to come to his place again.
“Don’t come here again. If you have any question, go and ask them at Osun State University Teaching Hospital where the children are continuing their check-up after they were resuscitated,” he said.
Further investigation revealed that Dokky had been practising in the neighborhood for five years, and despite the availability of three private hospitals in the area, he thrived because many in the neighbourhood are poor and cannot afford the cost of health care services in private hospitals. They are also usually disappointed most times they visit the Primary Health center in Sabo as the basic things they need are mostly not available.
Contacted, the Chairman of the Olorunda Local Government Education Authority (LGEA), Nathaniel Ojetola, confirmed that the pupils were taken to quack doctors for treatment after the complications they suffered over alleged food poisoning.
He added that “one Dokky took care of them by orthodox medicine and traditional means when he mobilised other government officials to the single room used by the one KB.”
Our correspondent visited the office of the Chairman Medical Advisory Committee, who is also the Deputy Chief Medical Director of Osun State University Teaching Hospital, Dr Tunde Afolabi, who confirmed that he received 32 pupils brought in by the state government for examination.
He said: “We received a total of 32 student brought in by the Ministry of Food and agency O’ Meal. I invited directors in various areas like laboratory science, pharmacy, nursing services, and also because of the pupils’ age, people in pediatrics were involved.
“We have three consultants, including a professor, to review the children’s cases. Each of them was tested, treated and re-evaluated.
“We discovered that they were in a stable state and only one had some degree of weakness, and following our investigation, we also carried out test on them. Thirty-one of them were asked to go.
“Those of them passing stool were given oral rehydration to rehydrate them. Some of them were given antibiotics and the one that was found to be very weak was placed on admission and discharged on Wednesday.”
The Special Adviser to the Governor on O-Meal, Grace Ayodele, however, debunked the food poisoning allegation, describing it as fake news from opposition political parties to tarnish the image of the state government.
She said: “Findings of government investigation also showed the inconsistency in the testimonies of some of the parents as well as the shady circumstances between the morning feeding and alleged food poisoning late at night.”
. Additional reports by Adebisi Aikulola
Culled from The Nation