On 21 July, I attended the appointment as agreed. She had completed the
rounds where she reviewed the cases, including Mr. Sawyer. She saw me
shortly after mid-day. As always, it was professional and detailed.
Unknown to me, Sawyer was already in the hospital. Unknown to her, he
was already terminally symptomatic with EVD. We managed on that day to
do my review and, curiously in hind-sight, fit in a conversation about
life, death and dying.
A MOVING TRIBUTE TO A TRUE NIGERIAN HEROINE - "The Ameyo Adadevoh I knew" - by: Peof Chidi Odinkalu - August 20, 2014
On 19 July, I spoke to Ameyo Stella Adadevoh, the senior Consultant
Endocrinologist and Physician, who has just died of the Ebola Virus
Disease (EVD), to schedule a previously agreed medical review. It was a
Saturday. We agreed that I would come in the following Monday, July 21.
On 20 July, Patrick Sawyer, the index case now thought to have brought
EVD into Nigeria, was admitted into the hospital where Ameyo worked.
As she would herself later narrate with
her Chief Medical Director, Dr Benjy Ohiaeri, Mr. Sawyer, on admission
“denied having been in contact with any person with EVD at home, in any
hospital or at any burial.” So, on 21 July, Mr. Sawyer was being managed
for Malaria. He had tested positive for Malaria parasites.
It
would take another day before the full possibility would hit home. By
then, she’d probably already had fatal exposure to the virus.
But, once she struck upon the possibility that Mr. Sawyer was
EVD-positive, Ameyo “immediately isolated/quarantined the patient,
commenced barrier nursing and simultaneously contacted the Lagos State
Ministry of Health and the Federal Ministry of Health to enquire where
further laboratory tests could be performed as we had a high index of
suspicion of possible Ebola Virus Disease. We refused for him to be let
out of the hospital in spite of intense pressure.” Her suspicions proved
correct.
That is Ameyo! If the occasion demanded it, she could
be martial with care and sweeping in her command. She had earned her
right to calibrated authority.
The consequences could have been
unfathomable if Mr. Sawyer had ended up in a General Hospital, for
instance. It required someone with her capabilities and pedigree to be
able to take the measures needed to firewall Mr. Sawyer and limit the
contamination that he would have inflicted. For that, she paid with her
life.
Ameyo became a doctor at 25. She had been my personal and family doctor for over 15 years.
Her roots were both deep and grand. She is one of the few Nigerians the
face of whose recent ancestor adorns one of our currency denominations.
Her Great-Grand Father, Herbert Macaulay, is one of the most celebrated
founders of modern Nigeria. Her father was himself a distinguished
physician, academic and university administrator of considerable
distinction.
Not that any of this mattered much to her. When
Ameyo qualified as a doctor in 1981, I was still a kid in High School.
Yet, I could get away with calling her “Ameyo”. To many of the children,
she was “Auntie Ameyo”. She simply wanted to get things done, and done
right.
That was important to her: doing things right. In her
field, Ameyo took no prisoners and tolerated no half measures. If you
came to her with issues outside her field, she knew the experts to. If
you showed up hoping to get worshipped, you were in the wrong shrine.
There was something about her directness, professionalism, commitment
to knowledge and curiosity, and irreverence that made Ameyo deserving of
respect well beyond the calling of the cloth. She loved her calling and
was totally dedicated to it.
When my kid brother died in June
2006, my Dad suffered terribly. She took charge of his management and
inspired him to re-discover joie de vivre. While she battled for her
life this past week and more, my Mum and Dad in Imo State joined in the
legion of Nigerians who prayed and wished for a different ending. Like
many people who had passed through her, Dad’s testimony is quite simple:
“that woman saved my life!”
Nigeria is lucky that Mr. Sawyer
ended up in the care of Dr. Ameyo Stella Adadevoh and the team she led. A
less able lead or a less dedicated team could have let itself and the
country down.
Unlike many of her peers, Ameyo didn’t play god.
Nor did she celebrate not having read any medical journal after Medical
School. On the contrary, she knew her specialty and invested heavily in
being up to date with the latest journals and skills in it. She was
always honest about where the limits of her skills lay and would happily
refer cases to colleagues with the requisite specialty whether in or
outside Nigeria. She had one heck of a professional Rolodex!
All
of us who had the privilege of ever having been managed or attended to
by her would testify that this was a professional of exceptional
thoughtfulness, ability, diligence, and application. The many colleagues
whom she mentored or supported would too. We’ve all lost an outstanding
person, support, redoubt, and professional.
Ameyo had one of the
sharpest minds you’d ever meet. She was at home discussing experimental
physics, molecular biology, public health, lip-stick, the science
behind bra-sizes, or different genres of music. She loved life. She was
the mother of a son whom she loved more than life itself and lived with a
mother to whom she was devoted. The void she leaves behind cannot be
filled. They deserve our thoughts, care and prayers.
Because of
the circumstances of her passing, there may be no grave to memorialise
Ameyo. This is why we must give careful thought to how to do so. We must
hold up and celebrate her example of selfless professionalism to the
point of death. And, as a people, we must be grateful that someone like
her is still in supply in our country.
Ameyo always had the
Hippocratic Oath hung in front of her on the left wall in her consulting
room, just beside her certificate. I once asked her why? She said if
you don’t believe (in) it you shouldn’t be here. She died true to her
oath and calling. Our country owes her a debt we can never repay. She
was truly and exceptionally special.
Professor Chid Anselm Odinkalu is the chairman of the National Human Rights Commission