Woman fakes death over 223.500FCFA hospital bill

From Maxcel Fokwen in Kumba

A woman diagnosed of ruptured ectopic pregnancy at the Hope Clinic Kosala Kumba has ended up declaring herself death conning family members to pay her bills. The rare trapping gained public attention in Kumba Friday September 16, 2012 when family members who had abandoned her in the hospital came prepared to pay mortuary bills and to collect her corpse.

Recounting the incident, the director of Hope Clinic, Jerry Etabong Esua  explained that the lady in question whose bio data we are withholding for professional reasons came  to the hospital on July 31, 2012 seriously sick. She was accompanied by her mother and a small child claiming that she had a miscarriage.

 According to Jerry, laboratory findings read that she had a raptured ectopic pregnancy of about 12weeks old causing a lot of blood to accumulate in  her abdominal cavity a situation nearing death. He furthered that her hemoglobin was so low that he ordered for plasma expanders from the general hospital Kumba to sustain the patient since she came out of Kumba and did not know anybody who could donate blood to her.

Etabong maintained that despite pieces of advice from colleagues and nurses that the patient risk not surviving if operated upon; he went ahead without asking for any money and did a successful operation. Meanwhile the mother had assured that the girl’s husband was in the oven drying cocoa and would pay the bills immediately after operations.

 By August 8, the patient had her bills pending payment and so the mother zoomed off assuring the hospital administration that she was going to look for money but came back with nothing after three weeks. In the meantime, the patient was barely surviving on the pockets of other patients in the hospital.

Going by Etabong, it coincidentally happened that the abandoned patient met with a friend of hers in the hospital who had also been operated upon and so the two conspired and called the mother of the abandoned patient telling her the daughter had died.

“Two days later, the mother arrived with the father and sister ... so when she heard they had come, she went and hid herself in a toilet to show that she had effectively died. They brought 140.000FCFA and the remaining 83500 FCFA was to be paid later and the next day five persons came for the corpse. I told them I will send a driver to go and leave them with the corpse and all the rest. They entered my office, I sent for the driver who came with the girl alive… the father looked at the girl astonished with his eyes and mouth opened and called the girl’s name which I don’t want to mention and said how are you and the girl said fine; the brother carried his hands on the head and said ‘doctor, weti wey you don do  na only God go pay you for  safe this  my sister, we be check sey we don los yi’”. Etabong detailed.

Meanwhile The Guardian Post gathered that before coming for the corpse, canopies had been raised back home waiting for her remains to be brought home.  A nurse at Hope Clinic who spoke on anonymity told The Guardian Post that the said woman is an indigene of Maromba a village  in the peripheries of Meme division.