Psych Observer – Exposing Bad Psychiatry

You can’t hide from psychiatry, even when you’re working as a nurse at a hospital! Psychiatry is like a terrible contagious deadly disease like A.I.D’s and once you come in contact with the virus, you can’t get rid of them.

By MURPHY GANAGANA, Abuja | Daily Sun news
Monday, April 14, 2008

Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the Hospital, Dr Olusegun Ajuwon

Doris Chinasa Iyabo Ihuoma, a nurse at the National Hospital Abuja, looked traumatized. She alleged that she had been subjected to severe pains, mental torture and humiliation for several months.

Her present predicament is the result of an alleged gang up against her by the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the Hospital, Dr Olusegun Ajuwon, and the top echelon of the hospital.

In a 29-paragraph affidavit deposed to in an Abuja High Court by the 32-year old lady who hails from Mbaise, Imo State, on January 30, 2008, Doris is accusing Ajuwon and the hospital management of labeling her a psychiatric patient.

She is also accusing them of threat to her life, criminal intimidation, unwarranted harassment, gross abuse of her fundamental human rights, invasion of her privacy, attempted murder and sundry sins.

In an oath to sustain her claims against the hospital management team, made available to Daily Sun, the Nursing Officer 11 said her predicament started on the February 23, 2007, when she was summoned to the office of the CMD while on an afternoon duty at the Neo-natal Intensive Care Unit of the hospital.
In the office of the CMD, she said, she was asked some questions she considered personal, like where she lived, the direction to her house, and her position in the family. “I thought the Chief Medical Director wanted to help me with my accommodation problem,” she said.

According to Doris, the CMD had asked her to withdraw a personal letter she had earlier written to him as well as the reply to a query served her in 2005. “I refused to withdraw the letter, and explained that the letter is personal and the CMD has an option to dispose of it as he deemed fit. And as for the withdrawal of the reply to the query, I maintained that the time lapse makes any withdrawal non-effective,” Doris said.

At that point, she alleged, the CMD called in some other doctors and nurses, including the head of department of nursing. One of the doctors, whom she later learnt was a psychiatric consultant, allegedly came in with an already drawn injection, filled with an unknown substance.
“I was then threatened to withdraw my letter and the reply or be injected with the unknown substance. At this point, I felt my life was in danger. I was then asked to surrender my mobile phone by the Chief Medical Director. I removed my SIM-card. Consequently, he destroyed the mobile phone stating that he wanted the SIM-card and not the mobile phone.

Doris alleged that her persecutors asked her to co-operate or be man-handled and be injected with the substance. According to her affidavit of claims, the CMD had snatched the drink she was still holding and informed her that she had been relieved of her job.
“I was man-handled, assaulted, psychologically abused, and accused of being mentally-ill by the Chief Medical Director as I refused to be injected with the substance,” she claimed.

According to her, “I was then carried above head by at least ten security men through the hospital grounds, from the Chief Medical Director’s office, through the labour ward, through emergency pediatric unit, until the security men were confronted by some nurses who demanded that I be left alone.
“At a point, the security men were also confronted by a house officer who demanded that the security men put me down… the house officer and the psychiatric consultant had a confrontation and I was eventually set on my feet.”

She further alleged that the psychiatric consultant had boasted that the house officer would lose her job for challenging her. At this point, she said, relatives of patients who were witnessing what was happening got angry and almost mobbed the psychiatric consultant. A patient’s relatives and his wife volunteered and took her home.

Claiming that until that day, she had never met or seen the consultant before. Doris said she had never been a psychiatric patient, adding that “on National Hospital behest, I have undergone two separate psychiatric/medical fitness evaluations after the incident, all proving me medically and mentally fit respectively”.

According to her, the house officer who had intervened on her behalf was relieved of her appointment before she resumed work. “I resumed work March 12, 2007 and some days later, the hospital management made a public announcement by the National Hospital public address system that no patient should be attended to by me, and staff of the hospital should stay clear from me because I was mad,” she stated.

Describing the action of the CMD as irregular, she declared: “I believe that the action of the CMD and the psychiatric consultant fell short of the required level of professional ethics and conduct expected of their respective posts.
“The way and manner I was manhandled by them not only infringed upon my rights and person, but also my professional competence”, Doris averred in her affidavit.
Daily Sun gathered that following the alleged gang up and the subsequent forcing of Doris to see a psychiatrist as a condition for retaining her job, the traumatized young lady visited several hospitals but was denied attention.

Sources close to the CMD, revealed that Ajuwon allegedly made wide contacts nation -wide, to make it difficult for the innocent lady to obtain a psychiatric examination as demanded by the NHA management, which could prove them wrong on their accusation.
This effort was said to have been quite fruitful, as no hospital was willing to attend to any body that identified herself as Doris Chinasa Iyabo Ihuoma, from the National Hospital, Abuja.

However, Doris was said to have been advised to visit hospitals other than those earlier visited, but never to disclose her identity, no matter the pressure, to facilitate her medical and mental evaluation.
The advice, Daily Sun learnt, was successful and enabled a mental status examination to be administered on her on January 11, 2008, by a consultant psychiatrist, with the Federal Medical Centre Owerri, Imo State. The test absolved her of any form of insanity, while declaring her fit to undertake any public service appointment.

On her return from the mental status examination, through a letter dated January 14, 2008 and addressed to the CMD, Doris had applied to resume for work, to practice her profession. However, despite an authentic medical report, which gave her clean bill of health, the trained midwife and nurse still knows no peace and rest of mind, as the CMD and his management team are allegedly bent on proving by any means, their accusation of mental instability against her.
The lady had enlisted the assistance of the Legal Aid Council, which in a letter dated January 25, 2008, forwarded her medical report to the CMD, demanding that she be allowed to pursue her career in a favourable and conducive atmosphere.

Despite the intervention of the Legal Aid Council in the matter, the CMD, Daily Sun learnt, is still bent on frustrating Doris, vowing that he would never live to see her around the hospital.
In view of the CMD’s alleged hostility and non-readiness to handle the matter fairly, Doris was said to have approached several legal firms to help her enforce her rights through the court.
Lawyers, who contend that she has a good case, Daily Sun gathered, have sent several correspondences to the hospital authorities, all to no avail. It was further gathered that Doris had petitioned President Yar’Adua over her plights in the hands of NHA management, a matter which the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), was directed to investigate.

Daily Sun learnt from top civil servants that the management of the NHA has no power to take any decision against Doris, without securing approval from the SGF, whose care the president had left her.
In spite of these positions, the CMD had gone ahead in a letter, NHA/PER/1064/1/100, dated February 27, 2008 and signed by the Head of Department, Human Resource Management, S. K. Obawede, directed Doris to remain absent from work “until further notice with full pay and rights.”
The hospital management in the fourth paragraph of the letter, dished out serious note of warning, which are apparently threatening and intimidating on a person protected by the law.

“As you can observe that the management has gotten the supports of men of police force both in uniform and plain dresses all over National Hospital, Abuja, to purposely arrest you when you are seen around/close to the hospital premises and that injection you had earlier refused to collect, the management will be forced to commence treatments on you in the first instance,” it read.
Daily Sun gathered that prior to this, Doris had petitioned the Inspector General of Police, Mike Okiro, over an alleged assassination attempt on her at her residence in Abuja.

When contacted over the matter, none of the hospital management team wanted to comment , as they continued to shift responsibilities from one person to another.
The hospital’s spokesman, Yahaya Sadiq, an assistant director, bluntly refused to speak on the matter, claiming that only the CMD had powers to comment.
However, he arranged a meeting between Daily Sun and the CMD, who refused to see the reporter, but directed that the matter be taken to his deputy. Perhaps sensing a trap, the deputy declined and directed that the HOD Human Resource Department carry the cross.

An apparently frustrated Sadiq told Daily Sun that he could say the little he knew about the matter, but insisted he must not be recorded. However, when it became apparent that every discussion had to be recorded, he denied that the hospital ever labelled Doris a psychiatric patient.
He claimed that the hospital only made an observation in that direction, and was insisting that she face a medical board. He claimed ignorant of the documents on Doris’ case, emanating from the hospital, including a 35 paragraphs court affidavit sworn to by the CMD, over the matter.
Ajuwon, in his affidavit sworn to in a High Court of Federal Capital Territory on February 25, 2008, denied that the depositions in the affidavit “by Miss Doris Ihuoma are not true.”
However, in subsequent paragraphs, he admitted inviting Dr (Mrs.) Ephraim Oluwanuga, a consultant psychiatrist with the NHA, to examine the mental status of Doris and forward report on it.