The National Youth Service Corps has released the findings of an inquiry into the death of a Corps member of the 2016 Batch ‘B’ (Stream I), Oladepo Ifedolapo Racheal, stressing that the allegation of negligence made in the social media was unfounded.
The Director-General, Brigadier General Sulaiman Kazaure, handed the report to the Minister of Youth and Sports, Barrister Solomon Dalung, when the latter paid a condolence visit to the NYSC National Directorate Headquarters today.
Kazaure said on the strength of the wide publicity given to the allegation of negligence on the part of the NYSC, he set up an independent investigation committee from the Scheme's Headquarters headed by the Director of Corps Welfare and Inspectorate.
He said the Orientation Camp clinic, where the Corps member was first treated, was well stocked with essential drugs for a non-surgical hospital, and has a total of thirty-one qualified and registered Doctors, twenty Pharmacists and eleven Nurses.
He added that there were no student Doctors among them as all they are all fully certified by the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria.
The report chronicled events from the moment Oladepo Racheal reported at the camp to the time of her death including the diagnosis made.
Kazaure explained that the inquiry found that from the evening of 27th November, 2016 up to the early hours of 29th, the Corps member was promptly attended to.
He also stressed that there was no delay in referring the deceased to the secondary hospital when the Camp clinic Doctors found that her case was beyond what could be managed in the Camp clinic.
“Apart from being the closest secondary hospital to the Camp, Gwarzo General Hospital is not a village hospital as insinuated in the Press. It is a standard General Hospital established in 1970 as a Zonal Referral Hospital with surgical theatres. It currently has eleven Doctors and is reputed to be one of the busiest in the whole of Kano State,” he said.
The Director-General also said the inquiry had also established that at no time was the deceased left unattended at the Gwarzo General Hospital as the Nurse who accompanied her to the hospital is a staff of the Hospital.
The Director-General, however, stressed that the purpose of the investigation and report was not to justify the death of the Corps member but to establish the facts surrounding her death, especially against the backdrop of the unfounded insinuations that have been peddled in the Press.
“Beyond the colossal loss to the family of the deceased, the loss of a corps member to the NYSC family and the nation at large is unquantifiable. At this prime of her life, Miss Oladepo was expected to make her greatest contribution to the development of Kano State and Nigeria in general. She has definitely left a vacuum that may never be filled.
“As we mourn her and other corps members who have departed this world, we shall continue to honour her memory by working harder with the rest of the corps members to achieve the time-honoured objectives of the NYSC,” he said.
