TREATMENT OF VICTIMS OF GUNSHOT AND POLICE REPORTS IN NIGERIA

TREATMENT OF VICTIMS OF GUNSHOT AND POLICE REPORTS IN NIGERIA
By Emperor N. Iwuala

The issue of rejecting gunshot victims by hospitals has been raging for sometime now in the country. There have been series of reports and claims by helpers of gunshot victims, medical practitioners and hospitals, especially private hospitals, that they are harassed by the police for giving medical attention to victims of gunshot without first obtaining police reports. On their part, the police have always denied these allegations.

However, In a recent debate on a bill for compulsory treatment and care for victims of gunshot the Chairman of Senate Committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters, Senator Umaru Dahiru unequivocally confirmed that there exists a police circular precluding medical doctors from treating gunshot victims without police reports.

Many Nigerians have condemned this policy. Be that as it may, the truth remains that, because of the prevalent belief that majority of gunshot victims are either armed robbers or hoodlums. Consequently, thousands of victims of gunshots in the country have lost their lives because of this ugly situation. A typical example is the callous and inhuman treatment meted out to the Late Assistant News Editor of the Guardian Newspaper, Mr. Bayo Ohu who was brutally shot by unknown gunmen in his house in Lagos few months ago. Ohu, according to reports, was rushed to one of the hospitals in Lagos after he was shot and was left to bleed to death because there was no police report on him.

Painful cases like these happen daily in nooks and crannies of the country especially among the poor masses that may not be given the privilege of self recognition. Incidents of assassination, kidnapping and armed robbery are now very high in the country and on several occasions, these hoodlums shoot innocent citizens indiscriminately to get what they want. Such incidents sometimes happen in places and in circumstances where it is always very difficult to access a police report as quickly as possible. While medical practitioners continue to shy away from treating them for fear of police harassment, such victims are usually allowed to die in their own pool of blood while waiting for police reports.
Ironically, it is the primary duty of the police to protect lives and properties. Section 303 of the Criminal Code imposes a legal duty on medical practitioners who undertake to administer medical treatment to any person to use reasonable care in doing so. It further provides that a medical practitioner who causes a patient’s death is guilty of manslaughter if, by his negligence his actions constitute such a disregard for life and safety. In addition, refusal or rejection of gunshot victims is a crime and contravenes section 10/4/Z of the Federal Road Safety Code and it attracts a fine of N50, 000.00 and above.

Interestingly, the Federal Government has recently issued a directive that all hospitals across the country must treat gunshot victims or face criminal charges. Also, there is a bill currently in the Senate for the compulsory treatment and care for victims of gunshots. The bill, when passed into law, would render production of police reports before treatment of gunshot victims illegal. With all these provisions it is now clear that there is no justification in insisting for a police report before a gunshot wound is treated.

We must acknowledge that there are moral, divine and legal provisions any where humans beings exist for the sanctity and dignity of the human life. Therefore, citizens, medical practitioners and the police in this country should rise up to stop this obnoxious practice which has lead to the sad and unjust deaths of many. Nobody knows who may be a victim tomorrow, as an Igbo proverb say, ‘he who sees a fowl using it legs to trample on excreter with its leg, should chase it away because nobody knows who would eat leg of the chicken when it is cooked’

Source FRCN.Recorded live from daily commentaries