Nurse kills 10 year old girl

Mrs Comfort Adeoye, popularly known as Iya Emman, is a house hold name in Momudu Street around Iyana-Ipaja and its environs in Lagos.  Reason? She is a nurse by profession and owns a medicine store, where those who are sick normally go for medical attention because her charges are affordable compared to what obtains in well established hospitals.

Reports say all was going smoothly for the 35-year-old mother of two until two weeks ago, when a 10-year-old girl died in the process of administering medication on her.

The primary five pupil of Alagba Primary School, Agege, identified as Esther Lawrence,  met her  untimely death after she was injected by Mrs Adeoye.

Esther's mother , a widow, who resides in the same compound where Mrs Adeoye’s chemist shop is located, was said to have called the nurse to administer drugs to her sick daughter on July 22, 2010. The nurse on examining her, was said to have confirmed that Esther had malaria and thereafter, gave her two injections. But rather than alleviate the situation, it aggravated it, as Esther reportedly started behaving funny and breathed her last even before she could be rushed to the hospital.Continue...

Narrating her ordeal to the police at Dopemu, the bereaved mother, Mrs Victoria Lawrence who is still recovering from the shock of the  death of her husband, lamented, Where do I start from? Who do I tell my agony? That a child that promised me she would live to pay me the dividend of parenthood some day is gone..?

Esther came back home from school on Thursday hale and hearty until the next day when she complained of being feverish. I wanted to take her to the general hospital but a neighbor suggested that I should take her to the chemist shop in front of our house since that is where majority of the residents in the area are treating their children

Madam Adeoye had listened to what she apparently assumed to be words of wisdom but little did she know that her singular obedience to popular voice was going to open another wound in her heart.

Continuing, the staff of Blue Cross Hospital Ogba, said, When the nurse came, she injected Esther and tried to give her the second injection when my daughter started convulsing. She went ahead and injected her again

The visibly traumatized mother told the police that before the anti-malaria injection was given to her daughter, Esther was weak owing to her inability to eat . According to her,  I gave her a bottle of soft drink before she took the injection .

But after the second injection, my daughter became cold and I gave her tea to drink but there was no improvement. At a point, I noticed she was stiff and I rushed to call the nurse. When she came, she said my daughter needed to take a drip and that it will cost N1,000. However, I  became apprehensive when she informed me that she could no longer treat my daughter and that I should take her to the hospital

Esther as gathered, was rushed to Popoola Hospital where she was said to have been referred to another hospital. Unknown to the widow, her daughter was rejected because she was already dead. It was gathered that it was in the process of taking her daughter to another hospital that she noticed she had given up the ghost. Looking dejected and confused, sympathizers quickly collected the remains of her daughter from her and took it back home.

The news of her demise as gathered, spread to the vicinity before the widow's arrival, where the nurse was said to have shut her shop and fled, apparently to avoid being lynched by mob, following claims that her injection allegedly sent Esther to death.

Weeping, Esther's mother further lamented  Esther was a brilliant girl. A girl I was looking forward to her becoming great in life. I struggled to ensure she went to school so that her father's family members  would not say I refused to send her to school. Her thought will forever linger in my memory.

Meanwhile, the intention to evade police arrest did not last for long as Mrs Adeoye was later arrested by the Police in her hideout She was said to be briefing detectives at the  Homicide section of the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID), from where detectives said she would be charged to court if found culpable. However,the remains of Esther has been deposited at the Isolo General Hospital  mortuary for autopsy.