Nigerian Woman's Kidney In Italy Removed Illegally

This is one of the many pathetic stories about
Nigerians in the Diaspora. And it is a story that will
bring tears to many eyes.

Ms Julie Osamese felt a little feverish when she
walked into the Ospedale Maria Vittoria Cibrario
Hospital in Turin, Italy sometime in November
2008. Her only complaint was a slight increase in
body temperature, and that she explained to the
doctor who attended to her. Tests were conducted,
following which she was given medication to use
and instructed to return for evaluation after a week.
But her second visit to the hospital could be
described as the greatest mistake of her life. For
this Nigerian lady, it marked the beginning of years
of woe. It was the beginning of years of trauma
during which she was moved to six other hospitals.
She eventually ended up in a mental home, despite
being mentally stable.

Some of the hospitals Osamese was taken to
include Amedeo Di Savoia Svizzerra and Ospedale
San Giovanni Bossco, Sun reports.

According to the chairperson of the House of
Representatives Committee on Diaspora Affairs, Rita
Orji, who recently led other members of the
committee to investigate Osamese’s disheartening
story, the woman, in her 30s and a legal immigrant
in Italy, was, on her follow-up visit to the Ospedale
Maria Vittoria Cibrario hospital, given drugs which
made her dizzy. It was gathered that as she
complained to the medical personnel who attended
to her, she was tied to the bed despite her protests.
By the time she woke up, part of her buttocks had
allegedly been chopped off, and her kidney
tampered with. That was how she lost control of her
bladder, leading to uncontrollable urination, it was
gathered.

Narrating the inhuman treatment meted out to
Osamese, the lawmaker said:

“After taking the drugs for one week, she came
back to report how she was feeling. On that day,
she was asked if she came to the hospital alone,
and she said, ‘yes’ innocently without knowing the
reason why that question was put across to her.
That marked, the beginning of her paralysis. She
was asked to lie down that they were going to give
her some medication. Within two, three minutes,
she was approached with a mixture in a cup and
she drank it, believing that it was for the fever she
complained of. But she became dizzy and she was
telling them how she felt. But they said there was
no problem.

“Suddenly, the team of doctors came around and
tied her legs and her hands on the bed and she
started shouting, ‘why are you tying me’? She said
one of the doctors responded that she could shout
at the top of her voice, but that nobody would know
what was being done. That was how they faced her
down and gave her injection on her base bone. After
the injection, she passed out. When she finally
regained consciousness, she saw that the lower part
of the buttocks on both sides had been chopped
off, to the extent that the bones in her buttocks had
cracked and she saw the pieces of the bones. Also
her bladder was disengaged from the source with
urine pouring out uncontrollably. In fact, she woke
up on a catheter and a big plaster by the region of
her kidney.

“They started moving Madam Julie from one
hospital to the other. It is the norm that when you
are being transferred to any hospital, the ambulance
in which a patient is transferred goes with a
medical report. But in Julie’s case, nothing like that
was done. They dumped her into one ambulance to
drop her in one home or the other without attaching
her medical history. They kept her, thinking she
would die. At a stage, she was only living on
prayers. They finally dropped her at the seventh
medical Centre. During our investigations, I asked
what the reasons for moving her from one place to
the other were. There is no answer to that. What
they were telling us is that she is mentally Ill. She is
diabetic. But I want to tell you that all these stories
are unfounded. No one has the confirmation of
these health conditions they told us she suffers
from based on medical ground.

“On our arrival at that place, we conducted a test
and found that Julie is not diabetic. The scan that
was carried out on her, and we have the result,
shows that her kidney was tampered with. This is
what the woman has been shouting about for the
past eight years, and nobody seems to believe her.
Today it is Julie, tomorrow I don’t know who it will
be. On their final stop, they dumped her in a mental
home, a woman of thirty something years, dumped
in a mental home that harbours old men and
women that are demented.”

Also corroborating Orji’s story, another member of
the committee who represents Itu/Ibiono Ibom
federal constituency, Henry Okon -Archibong, a
medical doctor, explained that Osamese can never
walk again, no thanks to the havoc inflicted on her.
“From what happened, they might have tried to give
her anaesthesia before they harvested the kidney. In
doing that, they damaged the lumber and sacred
nerves. So, there is no way Julie can walk again.

Julie has been paralysed and the issue of walking
has nothing to do with what we are calling for. She
has to be compensated, the medical doctors that
participated in what led to her current situation have
to be dealt with as the law permits,” he said.

Indeed, the committee is demanding that the Italian
government investigate Osamese’s case with a view
to fishing out the medical personnel whose highly
unprofessional conduct led to the loss of one of her
kidneys and her permanent confinement to a
wheelchair. The lawmakers are also asking for the
highest form of compensation and a complete
rehabilitation of the mother of one, who they said
have been the subject of several protests by the
Nigerian community in Italy.

 Orji declared:
“The action that will satisfy us as lawmakers starts
from the whole world condemning the injustice
meted out to an innocent person. We are saying
that there should be a holistic compensation and a
new medical team should conduct an analysis of
Madam Julie’s situation and proffer the best way to
get her life back on track. She has lost hope on the
medical doctors around her. So, I will advise that
they have to look for another medical team that are
not from Turin to carry out this job.”

The lawmakers also called on the minister of
Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama to investigate the
role of the staff of the Nigerian High Commission in
Italy, whom they accused of negligence.

“You can’t believe that when the relations of this
lady were at the hospital, a woman named Deborah
and another man called Ifeanyi, the woman told
them what she had been put through. She gave
them documents to back her claims and told these
relatives of hers to run to the Nigerian High
Commission in Rome, to inform them of what
happened. Those documents were given to one
Madam Martina and Mr. Folorunsho who are staff
of the commission. But no one asked after her
(Osamese) since 2009. They never went to visit her.
They didn’t even keep the documents handed over
to them. When we demanded for them, they denied
ever receiving the documents. For us, the
recklessness of the Nigeria High Commission in
Italy as at then, caused the terrible situation we see.
Assuming they intervened on time, the situation of
this woman will not be this bad,” Orji added.