6 Dead Doctors

Words can’t describe how awful I feel as I write this.I have worked in the pre-hospital care space in Nigeria for the past 5 years trying to ensure that tragedies like the one that befell these doctors never happen.

I founded my company the Flying Doctors Nigeria (www.flyingdoctorsnigeria.com) to help solve one of the biggest global health problems of our era. The problem of patient logistics.

I am convinced, that majority of trauma patients, especially in Africa, do not die due to the severity of their injuries. The care they need is often available somewhere, however, most of these patients are just at the wrong place and the wrong time.

Therefore our service, a pre-hospital care leader in Nigeria, has dedicated itself to getting the right patients, to the right medical facility within the right time frame.

However, over the weekend,  six doctors died because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. These were my colleagues,from my own state travelling by road to Kaduna, a state in Northern Nigeria, for a medical conference. The relationship between distance and death in Nigeria is detailed here.

The sole surviving doctor gave his account of the catastrophe in this article. 

Basically nearly all the physicians in the car had survivable injuries, but died because the ambulance took to long to come, the hospital was not prepared to handle trauma patients and eventually the ambulance ran out of fuel.

This story only made the news because the victims are doctors. But this is the story of thousands across sub-saharan Africa. I noted almost 3 years ago in  my New York Times article that 'Trauma has become a silent epidemic in Africa, an epidemic that will only spread as the economy grows' and that 'Sub-Saharan Africa has the world’s smallest number of motorized vehicles but the highest rate of road traffic fatalities, with Nigeria and South Africa leading'. 

By 2030, according to the Global Burden of Disease study, road accidents will be the fifth leading cause of death in the developing world, ahead of malaria, tuberculosis and H.I.V

1. Dr Alex Akinyele – Secretary NMA Ekiti, Federal Teaching Hospital (FTH), Ido Ekiti 2. Dr Tunde Aladesanmi – General Surgeon, FTH, Ido Ekiti 3. Dr OJ Taiwo – Anatomic Pathologist, Ekiti state University Teaching Hospital (EKSUTH), Ado-Ekiti 4. Dr Ogunseye JB – National Association of General and Government Medical and Dental Practitioners (NAGGMDP) National Secretary, Hospital Management Board (HMB), Ekiti 5. Dr Olajide O – Association of Resident Doctors (ARD), EKSUTH President 6. Dr Atolani Adeniyi – Secretary NAGGMDP, Ekiti state.

Rest In Perfect Peace, Colleagues, Friends, Brothers. Words can't express how devastated I am by your untimely departure. I wish I had spent more time with you, but I thought that you would always be around. My prayers are with your families. 

6 dead doctors, 12 grieving parents, 1 shocked nation. Will this be the turning point for Pre-Hospital care in Nigeria/Africa?