A StarTimes Operations Manager, 35yrs old Damilare Oladapo Oluwafeyisan, gruesomely passed on last week Monday, October 17, after suffering a severe fire accident from a generator explosion.
According to his fiancée, Miss Temitope Makinde who spoke to TORI, Mr. Oluseyisan fondly called Dre was assisting his neighbour to switch off a faulty generating set around 12:15am on Sunday, 16th October when the generator inexplicably caught fire which rapidly spread across his body.
Dre writhed in unbearable anguish as efforts were made to put off the fire that enveloped his entire body sparing his face alone.
The man, who's an operations manager in Minna, Niger State, was swiftly rushed to General Hospital Minna, where he sadly gave up the ghost at 9:30pm the following day (Monday) due to the alleged negligence, inadequate medical apparatus and gross incompetence of medical officials on duty.
Temitope who narrated the tortuous ordeal of Dre amidst uncontrollably tears, believes the hospital apparently exacerbated the already critical condition of her fiancé, who was already making frantic preparations towards their wedding coming up in May, 2017.
"My Dre shouldn't have died at all. No doctor was available to treat him. The available nurses only placed him on drips with no concrete treatment procedures while he laboured to survive in excruciating distress" Temitope said in a heavy voice.
"In fact, you will not believe the hospital had no drugs at all and other medical kits for accident victims. The nurses kept referring us to buy stuffs outside the hospital premises" she continued.
"It was crystal clear that Dre was dying as his mode of breathing changed and his heartbeat was irregular while he rolled from one side of the bed to the other in unbearable discomfort" Temitope averred as tears rolled down her cheeks.
She revealed painkillers were administered to him to suppress his turbulent health condition but they proved ineffectual as the patient remained totally unstable.
"He laid on his sick bed scantily clad at an open ward in the full glare of the public after his burned skin was peeled. His clothes and bed sheets had to be changed recurrently as they were always drenched in his body fluids"
"He became an object of sympathy as people stared at his severe skin burns with compassion. What hurts me most is that no doctor was available to attend to my fiancé as he started to die slowly due to loss of energy."
After deliberations, Dre's eldest brother – Tunde, Temitope and other loved ones who were with him at the emergency ward decided to transfer him to a standard hospital in Abuja with improved medical facilities as his resounding cries rented the air of the ward without adequate medical attention.
Their decision was impeded by a bureaucratic procedure - authorized referral letter from the medical doctor in charge who was nowhere near his office from the afternoon period till the evening thereby leaving the hapless Dre to the cold hands of death.
Temitope, a civil servant based in Kano wishes she could wake up from the nightmare of her lover's abrupt end as the family mourns him endlessly.
"If tears could restore the life of a dead person, Dre would have been back with me by now as I can't just be consoled about the loss," she lamented.
"I want people especially the government to know the importance of having adequate health facilities and well trained medical personnel in the country. Many promising lives of talented heads have been lost to the absence of adequate medical facilities in government hospitals."
"My Dre was very intelligent, hardworking, always touching lives, smiling and rarely gets angry but I have lost him," she cried.
Dre has since been buried at a cemetery in Minna by his family on Tuesday, the 18th of October, 2016. Dre was the 5th son of his mother who had six boys hailed from Ijebu in Ogun State but he grew up in Kano city.
