There is a saying that you must keep your eyes wide open in a mental hospital because anything can happen even when you least expect it.
A recent incident at the Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, Yaba, Lagos, underscores the above message. Infact, the incident proves that while at a psychiatric hospital, the fear of the mental patients should be the beginning of wisdom for both the visitors and the workers alike.
A few days ago, I went in company with a relation, who had gone to the hospital for a check-up.
Before my experience on that day, I had heard series of stories relating to conducts in this special world, but in most cases, I believed the stories were fabricated. But with what I saw that day, I now have the conviction that all what I heard earlier about psychiatric hospitals were the truth.
While we were waiting for my uncle’s name to be called to have his turn with the doctor, suddenly, there was pandemonium; we saw both hospital staff, patients and other visitors running helter-skelter!
On getting to the hospital premises, we were asked to go to the emergency unit where my uncle’s card would be submitted for documentation before he could be allowed to proceed to seeing the doctor.
While we were waiting for my uncle’s name to be called to have his turn with the doctor, suddenly, there was pandemonium; we saw both hospital staff, patients and other visitors running helter-skelter!
There was a loud noise and commotion, with people rushing towards the direction where the noise was coming from. After a few minutes, I moved closer to the area and the sight I saw shocked me to my bone marrows. Behold, there was a nurse with the whole of her face covered with her own blood gushing from a big gash running across the same person’s face! Her face had been lacerated with a razor blade by a mental patient she was attending
to!
The injured nurse was immediately rushed away from the spot by her colleagues, apparently to give her urgent medical attention.
But what surprised and shocked me most was that the mental patient, who perpetrated this wicked act against the nurse, remained cool, calm and collected, unperturbed by the heinous thing he had done and the life-threatening injury he had inflicted on a nurse trying to help him regain his mental
stability.
Even when he was asked the reason for his action, he merely told his interrogators that he was just interested in inflicting the injury on the nurse and nothing
more!
Following the incident, nurses at the hospital’s emergency unit and other health workers immediately ordered all those in company with mental patients to search them properly before presenting them to any of the psychiatric hospital’s staff for
attention.
Kafayat Oladipupo
Palmgrove, Lagos
