hen Joy Endurance, a middle-aged lady became pregnant, she chose to terminate the unwanted pregnancy. However, her efforts to that effect - by patronizing a quack - backfired and despite robust efforts made by well-wishers to save her life, the debacle eventually resulted in her death. The tragedy which occurred on Wednesday, March 28, 2012, has since plunged her family, friends and co-workers into great mourning.
Before her death, Endurance, a staff of a popular hotel in Igando area, a far-flung suburb of Lagos State, was described by a colleague as an outstanding staff who put the interest of the hotel above hers. The source explained that her selflessness and commitment to duty was the reason the management of the hotel put up a spirited effort towards her treatment at the General Hospital where she later died.
Narrating the events that led to her untimely death, the source said that the deceased was desperate to keep the pregnancy a secret. In desperation, she confided in a friend who assured her that abortion was the only way out, and thereafter, took her to a quack. Although, he was highly recommended, the quack’s handling of Endurance’s unwanted pregnancy ended in a mortal tragedy. Initially, there was no cause for alarm. Few days after the abortion, however, the deceased suffered a life-threatening complication.
Her deteriorating condition caught the attention of her bosses and she was subsequently rushed to a private hospital located at Egan, an extension of Igando. The hospital tried to salvage her situation without success and consequently referred her to the General Hospital. At this point the management of the hotel cross examined her and she made a clean br*ast of it. Her confession consequently led to the arrest of her accomplice friend and the quack, who have since been cooling their heels at the Igando Police Station.
At the General Hospital where she was admitted, the late lady responded to medication but gave up the ghost on a Wednesday afternoon. One of her colleagues who preferred anonymity avowed: “Endurance’s death is a big blow to the hotel. If anybody had told me that she would go so soon and in this manner I would have called the person a prophet of doom. She was always bubbling with life and ever motivating people around her”. Continuing, she recapped the plot of the tragedy: “We didn’t know she was pregnant until she had gone for abortion and began to have some complications.
When we found that her life was in danger, we took her to a private hospital at Egan. After a failed attempt to improve her condition, the hospital directed us to take her to the General Hospital. At that point we thought it was imperative to know the doctor that handled the abortion and the friend that led her to him. Luckily for us, she could still manage to speak at that point in time. She gave us the address of the friend and the doctor along Iyana-Iba. We informed the police who followed us to the doctor’s office and got him arrested.
We also got the friend arrested the same day.” She continued, giving more details about how the story ended on a sad note.”While she was admitted at the General Hospital, the management went all out to get money to buy every drug prescribed by the doctors in order to save her life. Despite all the efforts, she unfortunately passed away on Wednesday afternoon.” Ironically, as soon as information reached the doctor in his cell that his patient had died, he slumped and had to be taken to the same General Hospital.
The source continued: “The police handcuffed him to the bed where he was receiving treatment to prevent him from running away. Endurance’s friend is still there in the police cell. All we want is justice because what the doctor did was a criminal act punishable under the law”, she concluded. When Entertainment Express visited the hospital, the embattled doctor was found handcuffed to a stretcher on which he was receiving drip.
Efforts to speak with his relations who thronged the hospital proved abortive as they were engrossed in the arrangement on how to get an ambulance to take the remains of the late Endurance to Isolo, Mortuary. Speaking under condition of anonymity, a nurse at the maternity section where the late hotel worker passed away attributed her unfortunate death to poor handling of the abortion by the doctor. “Doctors are meant to save lives and not to destroy them”, she averred.
