Amid a crumbling health system plagued by doctor shortages, obsolete or inadequate medical equipment, and poor infrastructure, some Nigerian patients have defied the odds—surviving harrowing, life-threatening conditions and living to tell their stories, epitomising sheer resilience, writes VICTOR AYENI

To many of her friends and family, Pastor Stella Omotola was best known for her unwavering dedication to church activities at a Pentecostal church in Ibadan, Oyo State, which she had faithfully attended for over three decades.

So, it was not unusual when the grandmother told her husband on March 5, 2025, that she was going to a midweek prayer meeting at the church.

Although the church was just a five-minute walk from her home, that day, the 68-year-old chose to drive her car, a choice that perhaps later contributed to saving her life.

After the evening service, she decided to take her malfunctioning phone to a technician whose shop was adjacent to the church for repairs.

It was around 6:25 p.m., and the surroundings were still bright as sunset approached. But just as the grandmother crossed the first lane of the busy road and was about to step onto the second, the unexpected happened.

“As I climbed off the curb to cross the road, for reasons I still can’t understand, I slipped and fell down right in the middle of the road. The drivers who saw me falling quickly hit their brakes.

 “But there was a man riding a commercial motorcycle who was on full speed. He overtook the cars and ran over my head before I could get up. I screamed in pain,” she winced as she recounted her ordeal to Sunday PUNCH.

From there, a wave of agony engulfed the retired vice principal as sympathisers nearby quickly rushed to the scene and moved her to the side of the road.

“My eyeglasses were still on,” Mrs Omotola recalled. “I noticed my purse had fallen and its contents were scattered on the ground. I quickly gathered them back into my purse, held it with one hand, and sat at the corner of the road as people gathered around me.

“By then, blood was gushing from my head and covering one of my eyes. Someone from the crowd wanted to pour water on me. I raised my hand to signal ‘no,’ but I couldn’t speak loudly. Another woman suggested that I be taken to a private hospital in the area, but I didn’t want that, so I managed to shout, ‘Please, take me to a government hospital!’

“I brought out my car key and waved it at the crowd. ‘I have a car, this is my key!’ I kept saying. By then, other pastors and members of our church had seen me and immediately rushed to my aid. With the help of a stranger in the crowd who offered to drive, I was taken to the hospital that evening.”

When the grandmother arrived at the hospital, a medical staff member informed her that the emergency ward was full, as too many patients had already been admitted.

By then, her clothes were soaked with blood, and in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding, she pressed the wound against a tight edge of the car seat.

“We were still outside because they couldn’t take us in. I had to tell one of our pastors who was there to call one of my sons, who made calls and, through the intervention of a high-ranking staff member in the hospital, they found me a bed space in their emergency unit.

“A nurse attended to me and asked for my name and medical details, which were recorded. My younger brother, who had arrived after being informed of my accident, hurried to obtain blood from the hospital’s blood bank after cross-matching was done,” she recounted.

‘I saw myself leave the earth’

The grandmother told Sunday PUNCH that two hours after the accident, she was still not attended to due to the large number of patients being treated by only two doctors on duty and the unavailability of suturing instruments to stop the bleeding.

Word quickly reached the pastor’s children, who lived in other states. In a frantic effort to help their mother, they made calls and sent money while she weakly clutched her bleeding head as she lay on the hospital bed.

“I was in pain and getting weaker. People around me kept calling for help. At that point, I could only pray because I knew there was nothing else I could do. I realised that I could pass on before I got medical help.

“There were too many patients compared to the doctors present in that ward. I remember telling the people close to me, ‘Tell them to come and help me, I’m getting tired.’

“I became so weak that I could no longer speak, but inside me, I began to say my last prayer and asked God to forgive me of all my sins, and I also forgave everyone who had ever offended me,” the 68-year-old said, shaking her head as she recounted the ordeal.

Fortunately, two doctors came from another ward, took over Mrs Omotola’s case, and began to suture what was later found to be three deep lacerations on her head.

But while the procedure was ongoing, the grandmother became unconscious and unresponsive.

“At that point, I just knew I had drifted from the earth,” she told our correspondent. “The earth looked green. I saw myself travelling through a place which I can only describe as what looked like a rectangular tunnel.

“I could hear two persons whispering from one end of it, but I felt no more pain. I looked at myself and saw that I had a form just like my physical body, and I could hear very delightful music coming from afar. I tried to sing along to that music, but I couldn’t. Then I heard the loud voice of someone standing beside me, though I didn’t see him.”

“He asked me three questions, and from there, I got the notion that he wanted me to pray, so I started praying in my spirit. As that happened, something burst through the space or tunnel I was travelling through, and I saw myself pulled back into the earth, into my physical body.

“Then I began to hear again what people around me were saying. That was how I came back to life. The doctors who attended to me and everyone present at the hospital couldn’t believe I made it despite the volume of blood I lost,” she said, as her face lit up.

One of Mrs Omotola’s siblings, who pleaded anonymity, told Sunday PUNCH that he was present while his sister’s injuries were being sutured, noting that her hands actually stopped moving.

“Before she was transfused, she had been talking and was even pleading for us to give her water. But then, she became motionless, and her pulse wasn’t felt again. When I saw this, I quickly left the ward in anguish because I knew we had lost her. After a while, I was called back in. They had started transfusing her.

“She was still unconscious, but I saw her slightly raise her right hand as if she were pointing at something, like she was trying to signify something to us, and her mouth started moving as she began praying again! I couldn’t believe my eyes. She was given three pints of blood in total,” he said.

Health sector challenges

After Omotola regained consciousness, her condition rapidly improved until she was discharged from the hospital four days after the incident.

A computerised tomography scan conducted on her, a copy of which was sent to our correspondent, showed that she suffered no skull fracture during the accident — a malady which would have worsened her condition.

This scenario reflected how many patients struggle to cling to the thread of life and hope amid Nigeria’s failing health sector, which continues to battle a number of challenges.

In January, the Medical and Dental Consultants’ Association of Nigeria disclosed that the current ratio of one doctor to 2,500 patients in Nigeria fell short of the World Health Organisation’s recommendation of one doctor to 600 patients.

In April, the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Dr Muhammad Pate, revealed that the doctor-to-population ratio in the country “now stands at around 3.9 per 10,000,” adding that 16,000 doctors have emigrated from the country in the last seven years.

This mass exodus of medical professionals has intensified as a result of poor remuneration, inadequate health facilities, rising insecurity, and Nigeria’s challenging work environment.

Consequently, many health professionals in the country continue to languish under excessive workloads, burnout, and a lack of professional development opportunities.

This uneven distribution of skilled doctors has also plunged many patients who need urgent medical care into delays in treatment, increased referrals to other hospitals, and cancelled surgeries, leading to preventable deaths.

Health and biosafety experts have also decried the current approach of citizens providing emergency care from the scene of accidents to health centres, adding that inadequate emergency responses were increasingly turning emergencies into funerals.

Drawing on his years of experience, a senior medical officer, Dr Paul Anejodo, pointed out that he had seen many needless deaths, especially those related to emergency and trauma.

“A common cause is lack of available medical equipment, especially oxygen tanks. There is also a lack of doctors. In Nigeria, it’s one doctor to 10,000 patients!

“We also don’t have enough sub-specialty and government hospitals that are affordable for ordinary Nigerians. Many of our hospitals also lack emergency preparedness,” he told Sunday PUNCH.

Anejodo further explained that when he worked at a mission hospital, a patient who had suffered head trauma was referred to their facility, but on assessment, it was found that urgent monitoring by a neurosurgical team and spine surgeons was required.

He said when the medical team told the relatives about the need to refer the patient, they broke down in tears.

“They had been to about four teaching hospitals already, and they were rejected for one reason or another. Either the bed spaces weren’t enough, or there was no available ICU, or the subspecialty to manage the case was on leave or unavailable.

“In cases like this, we have to find another private hospital, which is really far away from us and refer. I can imagine how much time was wasted before this particular patient eventually got the care he needed,” Anejodo added.

An unforgettable day

As a staff member of a firm that operated a contract to supply diesel for telecommunications sites, Andre Tony was well familiar with the safety rules that guide driving.

The 40-year-old was at the time assigned to follow the trucks rented to supply the diesel and monitor them so that fuel was efficiently moved from the depot to the site where it was offloaded.

His task was to prevent the product from being diverted or sold, after which he would take public transport back to Lagos, where another fuel tank would be loaded at the depot.

But nothing could have prepared Tony for the traumatic ordeal he underwent on June 9, 2018, while travelling to Uromi, Edo State, from Lagos in a truck carrying 33,000 litres of diesel.

“When we arrived at Oluku, Edo State, there was a sloppy bend on the road and a pothole, and you’re expected to slow down before reaching it. That day, I sighted a small commercial bus (korope), which had on board an old woman and a man (the driver). There was another industrial truck, a 40-foot tipper, carrying big stones, approaching us.

“I was sitting close to the driver and noticed that we weren’t slowing down. So, I was about to tell the driver, ‘Oga, what’s going on?’ Before I could open my mouth, the guy just jumped out of the vehicle along with one of the motor boys, leaving the second motor boy with me.”

“I shouted out, ‘Iku re e!’ (This is death!) The next thing I heard was a series of loud sounds. The back of the industrial truck carrying rocks collided with our truck. Although our truck didn’t fall and the diesel we carried didn’t spill, the collision caused fractures in both of my legs, and my left leg was broken from the knee down,” Tony told Sunday PUNCH.

Trapped in a wreckage

Moments after the incident, Tony recalled being able to hear and see what was going on around him, but was unable to speak due to the wounds inflicted on his chest and mouth.

The severity of the crash also broke the waist of the second motor boy who was with him.

Other motorists, as well as the driver who had earlier escaped from the truck, rushed to the scene of the accident to rescue Tony.

“I could see that people parked their vehicles and were calling me, but I couldn’t respond to them, and I was stuck in the truck. My body started shaking as if I wanted to give up.

“I spent more than an hour in that wreckage. All my thoughts at that time were about my mother, who didn’t know what had happened to me. I had no wife or children. I was 34 years old at the time, and I kept telling myself I needed to survive.

“By the time the road safety officers came to rescue me, I had fainted. They broke through the wreckage to bring me out, and blood was coming out of my mouth. I was the only one they carried from the scene. I never saw the motor boy again,” Tony added.

When Tony was taken to the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Benin City, he regained the ability to speak and was able to tell the doctor his medical details and his sister’s phone number before he passed out again.

“I had two surgeries performed on me. If not for a medical professor there, who insisted they shouldn’t amputate my leg and opted for surgery, my left leg would have been amputated,” he recounted.

Tony added, “I still can’t fold my leg, and one of my toes is still not working. They placed implants in my leg to guide the broken bones, and I was introduced to compression socks. I had to be careful to avoid hitting the legs because of these implants.

“After five years, my family, friends, and the company I now work with supported me to get them out because the screws used to hold my bone together were beginning to come out of my flesh. Back then, if I wore shorts, people would see these screws protruding from my legs like boils. So, we had to quickly get them out.”

In 2023, the Federal Road Safety Corps disclosed that 40,000 people die annually from road traffic crashes in Nigeria, adding that these are the leading cause of death and disability in the country.

“There is a need for Nigerian drivers to be professionally trained in safety procedures, first aid, health emergency responses, and every other aspect of their work. This is the best way to minimise road accidents and complications that may result from them,” the Chief Executive Officer of DriveMe Mobility, Damilola Odunlade-Akeju, told Sunday PUNCH.

Nobody thought I’d survive

February 22, 2020, has remained an unforgettable day for Ahmed Sanusi, a virologist, who at the time was a medical student in Ibadan, Oyo State.

After spending the whole  Friday night reading to prepare for an upcoming examination, the extremely tired 25-year-old walked to the nearest junction from the University College Hospital at about 6 a.m. the next day, which was Saturday.

Unable to get a bike, Sanusi carried his bag tiredly and decided to walk down the street to his house. As he arrived at his street, two guys alighted from a bike ahead of him and ran towards him.

Speaking in Yoruba, the two men demanded money from the student, who could barely converse in the language spoken by the assailants.

“To be honest, I had only N400 in my wallet, and my bank account was also empty. I avoided an argument with them because I didn’t know what they were capable of doing.

“Before I could utter any further words, one of them raised a machete and hit me hard on my head. I fell down immediately, and he put his hands inside my pocket and took my phone.

“He inquired what I had in my bag, and I told him there was nothing. He noticed a bike was coming, so they left me, climbed their bike and drove off. I stood up and ran after them, screaming, ‘Ole, Ole! (thief),’ but nobody came to help me. The bike man that was coming before turned back and ran,” Sanusi recounted.

Drenched in his blood, Sanusi struggled to walk down to his house. Blood “was gushing out like a tap that was left open,” he said.

Help came when he walked down to the mosque in his area, and people there took him to the hospital.

“I bled for over 30 minutes non-stop. No amount of pressure was able to stop the bleeding. At the hospital, I was rushed to the emergency section. The nurses on duty had never seen such bleeding before.

“The doctor immediately came out to attend to me. No amount of ice packs could stop the bleeding. The doctor had no option but to suture my head with stitches to maintain homeostasis and stop the bleeding.

“My eyes were flooded, my mouth filled with blood. My nose and ears had blood inside them as well. I couldn’t utter any word, I had bled out all my strength. They immediately ordered blood for me; afterwards, I was taken to the ward. I couldn’t stand or move at all. Nobody thought I’d survive,” Sanusi recalled.

According to the doctor who treated him, one wrong move with the machete would have affected his brain and cost him his life.

However, as the days rolled by, Sanusi moved through different stages of recovery and was eventually discharged from the hospital.

Improved remuneration

The President of the Nigerian Medical Association, Prof Bala Audu, explained that, “Population is increasing, demand on individual doctors is also increasing, while the doctors are leaving the country for greener pastures. 15,000 doctors had left the country for greener pastures abroad in the last five years.

“There are difficulties pushing the doctors to leave the country, one of which is poor working conditions and remuneration. Here we are calling for the payment of seven months’ outstanding arrears and the consequential adjustments to doctors working in federal tertiary health institutions,” he said.

Audu further revealed that the NMA has advocated the universal applicability of the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure to its members in all sectors to reduce the brain drain syndrome.

At a press conference held last year, the Chairman of the Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria at the UCH, Ibadan, Dr Foluke Fasola, decried the rate at which medical personnel are leaving the country.

She noted that the poor remuneration of health workers, in addition to the poor work environment, has contributed to this, thus making many medical professionals resort to a lot of improvising.

“One of the solutions is to improve the remuneration of healthcare workers. However, I know that there are healthcare workers outside who need employment but are not being employed. There are some government policies that are stifling the employment process because, even before the usual japa syndrome, we were understaffed,” Fasola noted.

‘Our experiences changed us’

However, some of the patients who defied the odds to survive, despite the challenges in the country’s health sector, say their experiences have changed their perspectives on life, family, and spirituality.

“It was God who sent me back here; He gave me a second chance at life. So many people came to see me at the hospital and showed me love. The accident has instilled in me the need to be closer to God, bond more with my family, and love and forgive people,” Mrs Omotola told Sunday PUNCH.

Tony, now married and a father of two, has also learnt much since 2018, when he survived the accident in Edo State.

“It was a miracle. The doctors predicted that I would be on crutches or in a wheelchair for the rest of my life, but look at me today, I can stand and walk,” he said.

“Everyone was saying I’m a strong person, but I know it’s only God who kept me. I’m a survivor,” Sanusi wrote on his X account, a week after the accident.

“I’m still recovering from this incident and the associated trauma because I can’t even stand in crowded places anymore. I get scared when unfamiliar faces come too close to me.”