In a leaked audio tape, the patient was heard saying that doctors and other healthcare workers at the isolation centre ran away from her when they brought her in a government ambulance to the centre and said that she was being treated like an outcast.
She said, though, she was asymptomatic to COVID-19, she has severe cough and long history of Pneumonia which she treated way back 2004.
She said that she was not a COVID-19 patient as being tagged, and call for her reintegration.
It was not clear if this patient was among the two confirmed new cases of COVID-19 announced by the state government on Wednesday. The state government had said that the two cases were recorded from Udu and Uvwie Council areas.
An earlier government statement from Ughelli South Council chairman through his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Noah Edeamrigho, confirmed that the patient had tested positive to COVID-19 and admitted at the General Hospital, Otu-Jeremi.
The statement reads; “The council’s index case, a female identified as Omamuzo Ijala, 36 years old, resides at Bendel Estate along Ugborikoko, Airport road, Effurun.
“She had come to visit her fiance at Utuama Layout in Udu Local Government Area, when she fell ill but later presented herself at the Otu-Jeremi General Hospital on the 16th of April, 2020 at about 5pm with complaint of coughing, fever and anorexia.”
“Further examination revealed a provisional diagnosis of PTb., Pneumonia, R/o COVID 19, thus she was referred for chest X-ray & sputum AFB. On presentation the next day, the Medical Officer with high index of suspicion referred her to Warri Central Hospital for further COVID-19 evaluation, which was confirmed positive.”
Efforts to reach the Commissioner for Health, Dr. Ononye Mordi to comment on this story prove abortive as of press time as he didn’t pick several calls made to his phone.
