More controversies around covid-19 in Nigeria, as discharged patients claim they were only given food, no drugs

Some recovered COVID-19 patients in Niger State have claimed they were only given food and no single drug for the 14 days they spent in the isolation centre.

They made the claim when some of them spoke to newsmen in Minna, the state capital on Sunday, after they were discharged.

Alleging they were treated inhumanly, they said the isolation centre they were kept in was overcrowded and that some of them slept on the floor due to insufficient beddings.

They also claimed that after they were said to have tested positive for the virus that they were not re-tested before they were told that they were now negative for the disease.

One of them, who said he was picked up from Zumba in Shiroro Local Government said told reporters:

“I expected that I will undergo some treatment, but apart from food, nothing was given to me in the form of treatment. They did not give me a single drug.

“They only give us food every day that is all. No single drug, not even paracetamol was given to me throughout the 14 days.”

According to the patient, the same shabby treatment he allegedly got was equally what the mother and his other relatives, who were isolated for the disease also received.

Further lamenting the manner they were discharged he said:

“They just came and asked us to go. They did not tell us how we would move neither did they consider that we may not have any money to transport us home.

“We trekked from the isolation centre at the back of the police secondary school to the main road. From there, we trekked to Dutsen Kuran Gwari before someone assisted us to Sabon Gari junction.

READ ALSO: Dubai returnees refute claim by Lagos govt that one of them died from covid-19

“It was at Sabon Gari that a commercial vehicle carried us to Zumba before we now borrowed money from our people to pay the driver”.

The state government is yet to react to the allegation by the COVID-19 patients.

There have been allegations surrounding the covid-19 pandemic in the country, as many people, among them some who reportedly tested positive to the disease, claim they did not have the disease, and that while in isolation, they were shabbily treated, even as some had also claimed they were not given any drugs before they were discharged.

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now