After surviving cholera, patients grapple with paying hospital bills in Abuja

Godwin Samuel came home from school on a Monday afternoon with complaints of stomach pain which soon became full-blown purging accompanied by stooling and vomiting. When the 13-year-old wasn’t getting better, Esther Samuel, his mother, became worried over his condition.

At midnight, Esther said she and her husband had to call on neighbours in their compound in Nyanya, who helped to rush the boy to a hospital in town. At this point, Godwin was stooling uncontrollably with his eyes turned backward and his skin pale.

One week after the traumatic episode, Godwin is fully recovered after receiving treatment at the Abuja National Hospital. But they cannot go home yet because they have not completed their hospital bills.

Godwin, who was admitted to the hospital on Wednesday, July 21, was charged N72, 270.

“The boy is okay, at least now he can play but they have given us a bill, but there is no money to pay,” Esther said. 

“We were given a bill of N72, 270, we’ve paid some but it’s remaining like N40, 000 for the money to be complete.”

Esther said her husband had left the hospital to source for money from friends and acquaintances. She called on the government to come to her aid as she is jobless.

‘The money they are charging is too much’

Mary Jerome, another patient, was rushed to the hospital on Monday after she began purging on Saturday, July 17, as well as stooling and vomiting uncontrollably. 

She told TheCable she feels the hospital is not being “fair” with the bill and the handling of patients. She said she got to the hospital on Monday evening but was left unattended while laying on the ground screaming.

The hospital attended to her after her husband paid N17, 500 despite being covered under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). But because NHIS staff were not available that night, she had to pay before she was admitted. 

At the end of her stay at the hospital on Friday, July 23, Jerome said her bill was slated at over 70, 000 but she was lucky because NHIS already covered most of it. 

“If not that I am under NHIS, I will not be able to pay that money. Maybe I will even have to borrow to pay. People don’t have that kind of money to buy drugs or even pay for hospital, so if the government can help people, it will be good,” Jerome said. 

As for Mattias Yaye, he was charged N65, 176 following the treatment of his cousin, Cletus, who fainted from stooling and vomiting nonstop. Yaye says he is grateful that Cletus is better despite having to pay such an amount. 

“Our brother is okay, the condition we brought him here, we didn’t know if he would survive it or not. So no matter the amount, if God will provide it for us to pay. Any amount is not a waste,” he said.

“Apart from medicine, there was nothing else they provided for us. We bought most of the other things by ourselves like the pampers, we bought it by ourselves. There’s nothing here.”

‘I felt like they should put a knife to my throat’ 

The recent cholera outbreak in Nigeria has ravaged states across the country, with more people coming down with the infection and several deaths recorded.

Ramatu Aliyu, minister of state for the federal capital territory (FCT), had on July 22 said the death toll in the territory had risen to 60 with over 600 suspected cases. 

On July 19, TheCable reported that an unidentified woman who was rushed to the National Hospital, Abuja, died after exhibiting symptoms of cholera.

Chiagozie Fidelis is one of the lucky few who did not die from the infection, although he said the pain made him feel like taking his own life. 

“My stool was watery, I was vomiting, my muscles were ceasing,” he said, adding that, “I fainted several times and I kept passing excreta all over my body. Even when we were coming to the hospital, everywhere was paining me, and I was stooling on my body and all over the car. I couldn’t control it.

“It was very painful, very painful. I felt like they should just put a knife on my throat and slaughter me because the pain was too much.”  

Why the cholera outbreak?

The doctor on call when TheCable visited the hospital said all the patients are responding to treatment.

She told TheCable that the rainy season is part of the reasons why there is a high burden of cholera in the country. 

She said the virus that causes cholera is found in faeces, and when flooding occurs, it washes contaminated faeces into water bodies.

Therefore, when the contaminated faeces transmits into the water bodies that people drink and use for cooking, they get infected with the bacterial disease.

The doctor advised that people should be careful of the source of water they drink or use for cooking. She also advised that people should maintain good hand hygiene, boil any water whose source is unknown and avoid handling persons who have the infection.