The death of Dr Salome Oboyi from Lassa fever she contracted while treating a patient has drawn reaction from the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors, NARD.
Orijoreporter recalls that Oboyi, who worked at the Bingham University Teaching Hospital, Jos, died last week after contracting the viral infection while attending to an infected patient.
The deceased was attached to the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the hospital.
Her death occurred barely two weeks after developing symptoms.
NARD in a statement titled: Loss of a Hero”, jointly signed by the National President, Dr Mohammad Suleiman, Secretary-General, Dr Shuaibu Ibrahim and the Publicity and Social Secretary, Dr. Abdulmajid Ibrahim, NARD said the doctor’s death was not an accident but “the predictable consequence of a healthcare system that routinely exposes its frontline workers to danger and then mourns them quietly.”
The association lamented what it described as a troubling silence that often follows the deaths of doctors who contract infectious diseases in the line of duty, noting that such losses rarely attract the public outrage or institutional response accorded to other high-profile deaths.
“When doctors die from the very diseases they are meant to fight, the nation often responds with silence. This raises a painful question: whose lives do we truly value as a nation?” the association asked.
The Resident doctors’ body said medical practitioners across Nigeria continue to work in high-risk environments marked by inadequate personal protective equipment, weak infection prevention and control systems, delayed diagnosis of infectious diseases, and poor occupational health and insurance frameworks.
“Doctors show up daily despite knowing that a single exposure may cost them their lives. When that happens, families are left grieving, colleagues are demoralised, and the system moves on,” NARD stated.
