Some Nigerians, including medical experts think Patrick Fakoya, popularly known as Rico Swavey, stood a better chance of surviving injuries he sustained during a car accident that eventually led to his death if he had been exposed to early emergency intervention such as an ambulance and trained paramedics.

Experts who analysed the clinical conditions that led to the former BBNaija housemate’s death are thus shifting the torrent of blame trailing the Doren Specialist Hospital, where he was initially assessed, to lack of proper emergency response.

Following the release of a statement on social media by the hospital management, some doctors said the hospital made efforts to stabilize Rico, despite the odds stacked against him.

The statement noted that Fakoya was presented as a deeply unconscious patient with a Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) of 3/15, drenched in alcohol. He was bleeding from the ear, nose, and mouth, and was also vomiting food.

“The airway was cleared and suctioned. Oxygen administration was commenced; blood pressure read 130/85mmHg, Spo2 – 93 percent on oxygen and 85 percent off oxygen. Intravenous fluid 5 percent dextrose saline and 0.9 percent normal saline was set up, including injection hydrocortisone and injection diclofenac administered,” the statement read in part.

Based on this, Olusina Michael, a medical doctor in a Twitter thread, explained that GCS is a scale used to assess patients with brain or head injuries. A rate less than eight automatically requires urgent admission to an intensive care unit (ICU).

He said the standard for transporting a victim of a road accident involving head injury is an emergency ambulance equipped to stabilise the cervical spine or neck.

“There was no ambulance to have ensured this. A lot of times transfer of patients can affect their prognosis. Ideally, every head injury patient should have an urgent CT scan to see what’s going on. Definitely, he must have had a skull fracture,” the doctor said.

“Letter says the Doctors, Nurses assessed and resuscitated adequately. We should give credit to that team for emergency first Aid. The big question…how many functioning ICUs do we have in Nigeria? That case was strictly an ICU case.”

Another medical professional using the handle @trending_medic pointed out that given the paucity of practicing neurosurgeons in the country, there was little the hospital could do than refer to a higher hospital capable of urgent surgery, which in this case is Evercare Hospital Lekki.

Chisom Adaora, in her tweet, called for the need to prioritise the structured use of paramedics and emergency numbers to help in desperate times.

But despite these analyses, public anger and grieve over the seeming lack of empathy by Doren hospital’s officials remains fired up as many insist that their effort was not adequate to save Rico.

Others are calling for thorough investigation of the hospital operations as they recount ordeals encountered it’s the service.

“This same Doren hospital nearly paralysed my pregnant wife in the name of giving her anesthesia for surgery. While my wife was battling for her life because they missed the right vein twice, the anesthesiologist confessed she had been working overnight and hadn’t slept,” Frank Eleanya, a journalist tweeted.

@clare_nwa said “Same Doren hospital that didn’t have a single defibrillator when my neighbor who collapsed was rushed there? Or the same Doren that refused to attend to a friend who ingested poison saying he was more or less dead? I’m honestly not surprised.”

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Business Day, established in 2001, is a daily business newspaper based in Lagos. It is the only Nigerian newspaper with a bureau in Accra, Ghana. It has both daily and Sunday titles. It circulates in Nigeria and Ghana

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