Doctors express readiness to comply with the treatment of gunshot victims’
Stakeholders in the healthcare sector have express willingness to comply with the Federal Government recent authorisation of medical practitioner to treat all gunshot victims without a police clearance Nigerian Police.
The authorisation bill which was enacted in 2009 by the National Assembly and passed into law in 2017, mandated compulsory treatment, protection and care for victims’ of gun in Nigeria and also prescribe penalties for violators.
Some doctors, who spoke to BusinessDay, commended the government for making the treatment of gunshots victims before a police report compulsory.
Ojo Sikiru a medical practitioner based in Lagos, said the recent reversed law to treat all victims of gunshot before providing a police report, give doctors the opportunity to save the life of the patient first.
He stated that it is a welcome authorisation by the government and all doctors are willing to comply.
Similarly, Akinkunmi Akinkunmi, a medical practitioner at Lagos University Teaching Hospital LUTH, Lagos said, “I will treat a patient with a gunshot; because there is a law backing it up which requires reporting cases to the nearest police station within two (2) hours of commencement of treatment and the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) has also given position on it.”
According to section C 7351-7 of the bill mandated every hospital in the country to give immediate and adequate treatment with or without a police statement.
“Yes, I would treat a gunshot patient. It is life first because life is a fundamental right. The much I would do is to stabilizer the patient before any other proceeds with the police,” Catherine Mbakwe, medical practitioner based in Abuja said.
Also, Oge Ilegbune, head of strategy, Development and Outreach at Lakeshore Cancer Centre, said as that the outreach centre already has a specialist to treat gunshot victims.
“When a patient arrives as we are the closet centre, we will stop the bleeding, put a drip and then refer to the nearest specialist hospital because the victim needs a proper attention from a specialist which we cannot render at our clinic,” he said.
ANTHONIA OBOKOH