A SENIOR consultant physician based in Kano State has died after collapsing barely 15 minutes after arriving at a hospital to attend to patients who had waited several hours for his evening clinic.
News Point Nigeria reports that the incident was disclosed by Suleiman Harbo, an aide to the Jigawa State Governor, who recounted the tragic event in a public statement after witnessing the incident while accompanying his elderly mother to the hospital for a medical appointment.
The incident occurred on Saturday at Arewa Surgery Hospital, Hotoro, Kano, where the physician had reportedly responded to a request to stand in for another consultant who was unavailable for scheduled appointments.
Harbo said he had taken his elderly mother to the hospital at about 5 p.m. for an appointment with a consultant physician.
According to him, upon arrival, hospital staff informed them that the doctor originally scheduled to attend to patients would not be available and advised them to wait for another consultant, identified simply as Dr. Ibrahim.
He explained that about six patients, most of them above 80 years old, remained at the hospital waiting for the physician to arrive.
Concerned about the prolonged delay, Harbo said he contacted the hospital reception to enquire about the consultant’s whereabouts.
The receptionist, he said, reached Dr. Ibrahim by telephone and informed him that several elderly patients, including his mother, had been waiting for hours.
According to Harbo, the consultant assured them that he would report to the hospital immediately after observing the Maghrib prayer.
He said Dr. Ibrahim arrived at the hospital shortly afterwards but suddenly became dizzy immediately after stepping out of his vehicle.
The physician was immediately rushed into the hospital’s emergency unit by fellow medical personnel, where doctors made frantic efforts to revive him.
“Within 15 minutes, he was confirmed dead,” Harbo wrote, describing the incident as shocking and deeply painful.
He said the sudden loss left both patients and hospital staff devastated.
“The painful irony was this: all the patients waiting to see him were above 80 years of age, while about five senior consultant doctors fought to save him, yet all of them broke down in tears,” he said.
Harbo recalled that his mother was initially unaware of what had happened and simply asked whether the doctor had arrived.
Before he could respond, another patient reportedly informed her that the physician everyone had been waiting to see had just died.
On hearing the news, Harbo said his mother immediately offered prayers for the deceased.
“Innalillahi wa inna ilaihi raji’un. So that was the doctor they rushed inside? May Allah have mercy on him. Let us just go home. I am already healed,” she was quoted as saying.
Harbo said he struggled to contain his emotions as he drove his mother home after the heartbreaking incident.
He also revealed that people who were present during the doctor’s final moments said his last audible words were, “La ilaha illallah,” the Islamic declaration of faith.
Describing the loss as one that would remain with him for a long time, Harbo prayed that Allah would forgive the late physician’s shortcomings and grant him Al-Jannah Firdaus.
The exact cause of Dr. Ibrahim’s sudden collapse and death was not immediately known.