BLOOD RANSOM: FEDERAL MEDICAL CENTER (FMC) IDI-ABA, OGUN STATE ALLEGEDLY DEMANDS FOUR THOUSAND NAIRA FROM FREE BLOOD DONORS

SecretReporters

Government-owned health care centres which are meant to render immediate and standard services to her citizens across the country have not only drifted from its core values and functions but also uses unscrupulous medical personnel to siphon funds as well as milk patients dry before any treatment commences.

This is as information made available to SecretReporters revealed that a student of the Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta (FUTA) who was in dire need of urgent medical attention when rushed to the Federal Medical Center (FMC) Idi –Aba, Ogun was denied an emergency blood transfusion by the medical personnel team on duty as they demanded payment from students who volunteered to freely donate their blood to save the life of their friend.

Sources revealed that the student who was known by her friends to have been suffering from leukaemia, upon learning that the patient’s blood level was about Eighteen percent (18%) and drastically reducing freely volunteered to donate their blood so as to save the life of the promising student. Surprisingly, upon getting to the medical centre, they were asked to pay N4,000 (Four Thousand Naira) each before they are allowed to donate blood to their colleague who was already at the verge of giving up.

Their vehement refusal to pay the money before they can freely donate blood to their friend we learned placed a sudden financial burden on the patient who needed about three (3) pints of blood costing almost N60,000 as the price for each pint of blood is estimated between N10,000 to N25,000 in most hospitals.

Another source who spoke with our reporter on the condition of anonymity stated that “…that was how we brought one of my friends here in January this year and they refused to attend to him just because we didn’t pay the full bill”

More shocking is the fact that this ugly trend has eaten deep into the fabric of the Federal Medical Center (FMC) Idi –Aba, as the illegal extortion of funds from patients in the centre, has turned into a daily offering due to the fact that helpless patients who are in dire need of these medical services have no other option than to dance to their tune before receiving treatment in the government owned hospital.

With the country currently in need of about 1.8million units of blood yearly to save people from dying during emergency medical care it is however disheartening that an institution saddled with the responsibility of saving human lives will engage in such despicable activity especially at a time when the National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS) is running at a deficit and in dire need of free blood donors.