New Notes Crisis Claims Pregnant Woman’s Life In Kano Hospital

BY OUR CORRESPONDENT – Crisis trailing the new Naira notes policy has reportedly led to the death of a pregnant woman, Shema’u Sani Labaran, at the Abdullahi Wase Specialist Hospital in Kano.

It was gathered that the woman, unfortunately, lost her life due to alleged negligence from the hospital’s medical personnel who demanded “payment before service”.

According to the late woman’s husband, Malam Bello Fancy, her death was due to the network delay in a transfer made to the hospital’s bank account with the doctors insisting she would only be attended to when the alert is received and appropriately confirmed.

An obviously crestfallen Bello lamented that the doctors did not attend to his wife for more than three hours because of the transaction delay, adding that things would have been different if only they had shown compassion and shifted their hard stance on the payment procedure.

Mallam Fancy, who recounted events leading to his wife’s death on Freedom Radio, said being in labour, she was taken to the hospital for medical attention, but the hospital rejected his old naira notes and also had no POS to receive payment.

Consequently, he was told to deposit the money in their account and though the agreed amount was duly transferred with the debited alert shown, the doctors on duty still refused to touch his wife, insisting they must see the alert in their account before taking any action.

Hear him; “My wife walked into the hospital from our house, but before they received the alert, the pains had doubled and she was already bleeding. Still, they didn’t touch her until after three hours when they received the alert.

“After they admitted her, they discovered that she could not deliver by herself; that she must undergo an operation. I agreed and paid the money; still through transfer. It also delayed for an additional three hours before they received the alert and operated on my wife. Shockingly, the baby was brought out dead and the mother also died.”

But reacting to Mallam Fancy’s allegations, the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of the hospital, Dr Rahila Garba, said the claims did not truly represent the facts of the incident.

He however refused to further comment on the incident, saying that the hospital would issue an official statement at the appropriate time.

The CMD’s position was thrashed by other patients in the hospital, who confirmed the incident, saying that they also encountered delayed services as a result of payment into the hospital account through online transfers.

Also reacting to the incident, the Spokesman of Kano State’s Hospital Management Board, Malam Ibrahim Abdullahi, confirmed receiving information about the development with a promise to commence the investigation soon.

“We are not certain about the cause of the incident, we just got the information. But we have commenced an investigation to uncover the facts of the case.”

Amid the Naira swap crisis, the Governor Abdullahi Umar-led administration in Kano State had warned marketers, supermarkets, and the public against rejecting old naira notes in the state, threatening to shut down and revoke the licence of any business enterprise found in the act.

But our Correspondents report that most individuals and businesses across the state, especially public institutions, including government-owned, hospitals, petrol stations, and marketers, had started rejecting the old notes, even before the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) extended the deadline of February 10, 2023.