How wrong drug prescription killed my husband-Widow
A Kaduna based widow, 66, Mrs Catherine Bitrus has given a detailed account of how her husband, Mr. Bitrus Yayock Duniya died 30 years ago due to wrong prescription of drugs by a hospital in Kaduna (hospital name withheld by The Sun)
Speaking to newsmen on Sunday at the 30th remembrance church service for her husband, Mrs Catherine Bitrus said her husband died due to complications from wrong dosage of drugs, prescribed for him by a Nurse in a government owned hospital.
This was even as she disclosed that she rejected the temptations of remarrying after her husband’s death, though men were falling over heels to marry her, but kept them at bay by telling them, “I am married to Jesus”……………………………………..CONTINUE READING
According to her, “My husband fell sick, and I took him to a hospital, the first time he went to a hospital in Kaduna (Hospital name with held) for treatment. The prescription of drugs they gave him, the Nurse that gave him the drugs gave him wrong prescription, instead of taking quarter of a tablet, she asked him to take two tablets, and that day I had already traveled to the village to bury my cousin who died while delivering a baby at birth.
“By the time I came back to Kaduna my husband was completely down already. I had to rush him to the hospital, and the doctor now said it was a wrong prescription, and said it was supposed to be a quarter tablet, not one, not two tablets. So they advised that we should go to another hospital and before we could reach another hospital he has gone into coma. But after a day he came out of the coma.
“The second day he spent in the hospital he went back to coma. We were in that hospital for four days. His friend and brother, the then Senator Isaiah Balat visited him in the hospital, Balat is now late also. Balat advised that we move my husband from that hospital to a medical Consultant in Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital(ABUTH) in Zaria. I took my husband there. He was still in coma at ABUTH for two weeks. That was how it all happened and we lost him.
“I can’t quantify how much I missed my husband; I missed him and I missed him. I really missed him. Let’s assume we are fighting every day in the house if he were to be alive, it is better than to be dead. Now I wake up every day without finding him, nobody to fight with. He was quiet a loving man, gentle man to the core, he was not the talking type, l am the one doing the talking”.
Explaining how she resisted the temptations to remarry after her husband’s death, the 66 years old widow said, “After my husband’s death; I cannot thank my mother enough, she is late now. She didn’t go to school, but God gave her wisdom, it wasn’t up to four months when we came to Kaduna after Women Teacher’s College (WTC). I was posted to Barnawa government day secondary school. When I told my mother I wanted to return to the village after my husband’s death.
“She now asked me, my daughter why did you want to go back to the village? She said I should remain in Kaduna because if you return to the village everyday knows you are a widow, and when some men are drunk with local brew, they will come and knock at your door, and whether you open the door or not, they will abuse you…………………………………CONTINUE READING
“But if you stay in Kaduna how many people know that you are a widow. They will think your husband is working elsewhere. So just remain in Kaduna and concentrate on looking for money to feed your children. Sometimes, someday, your children will support you. My mother had girls and only one boy. My father would say he will not waste his money to send girls to school.
“But my mother was industrious, she was a business woman, she trained us girls. I went to college, and after my college education I got married, and I still continued with my education to tertiary institution up to degree level before my husband died. So I thank God for everything.
“I was always pleading with men who came to marry me, not to be annoyed because I have to stay with children, and not to remarry. One man got disappointed and announced angrily that nobody could understand me, and that I love my children so much. That is God for you because I asked God what He wanted me to do now that He had kept me in this condition when I was still 36 years of age. I was still young.
“But God talked to me in a dream; look for money anywhere and train your children. And all of them were willing to go to school. All of them are now graduate and none of them gave me headache. I lost my first daughter. She had two children. She went to school in Netherlands with her husband. She died there. They brought her corpse back home to Nigeria. So glory be to God. I am now married to Jesus. And I am now very happy. Nothing gets me annoyed any longer. I keep to myself and pray to God always”.
Speaking in an interview with newsmen at the event, a title holder of the Danmadani Atyap community, Mr. John Bala Gora extolled the virtue of late Mr. Duniya, saying, “The late Bitrus Yayock Duniya was a household name. A committed individual to the cause of Atyap land. He was a lawyer who served in the chambers of late Chief Solomon Lar, one time governor of Plateau State. He was a politician. He was one time a member of the Kaduna State House of Assembly.
“He was a quiet man, gentle and jovial. He was quite intelligence and a good listener. He was a true patriot in Atyap community. The thanksgiving in his honour today is very significant in the sense that it was timely. Widowhood in Nigeria is very difficult but Mrs Bitrus Yayaock was able to compose herself, pulled herself together with focus and trained her children to tertiary institutions.
“It is my prayer that the children will take care of her until when God will call her to rest. It is my prayer that she should never have any reason to bury her children. God will preserve, protect and defend them”.
