OPEN LETTER TO GOV BABAJIDE SANWO-OLU

I write this letter with a deep sense of anguish, patriotic concern, and moral urgency to appeal for your immediate intervention to rescue First Consultants Medical Centre, Ikoyi, Lagos, a hospital that occupies a sacred place in Nigeria’s medical and public health history.

This hospital is not just another private medical facility. It is hallowed ground in Nigeria’s fight against global pandemics. It was at First Consultants Medical Centre that the Ebola Virus Disease was first detected in Nigeria, when the late Dr. Ameyo Stella Adadevoh, with rare courage, professional vigilance, and selfless patriotism, isolated the Liberian index patient, Mr. Patrick Sawyer, thereby preventing what could have been a national catastrophe. She paid the ultimate price with her life so that Nigerians might live.

As if that sacrifice was not enough, the COVID-19 pandemic further devastated the hospital. Some of its key medical staff lost their lives in the line of duty, and since then, this once-celebrated centre of medical excellence has steadily declined. Today, the hospital that once stood as a symbol of hope, professionalism, and national pride has become a shadow of itself — almost a ghost of its former glory.

Your Excellency, a nation that forgets its heroes and allows its historic institutions to die is a nation at risk of moral collapse.

Permit me to add a personal dimension to this appeal. In April 1996, the great Nigerian doctors delivered my triplets at First Consultants Medical Centre. The professionalism, care, and compassion shown to me during that defining moment of my life remain unforgettable. Those triplets are alive today because of that hospital. Two of them have since become medical doctors practicing in the United States of America.

During the recent Christmas holidays, I asked my son (the boy among the triplets) who was in Nigeria for the festive season and intended to experience a bit of “Detty Lagos” to stop by the hospital on behalf of the family to extend our compliments and explore ways of expressing appreciation for the kindness shown to us nearly three decades ago.

His report broke my heart. What he found was not the vibrant institution that once saved lives and made history, but a struggling facility gasping for survival. That report filled me with anguish and compelled me to write this appeal.

Your Excellency, this hospital must not be allowed to die in pain. Saving First Consultants Medical Centre is not a favour to a private institution; it is a national duty. It is about: preserving a national medical heritage, honouring the sacrifice of Dr. Stella Adadevoh and other fallen health workers, restoring a symbol of medical excellence and emergency preparedness, and ending a powerful message that Nigeria values institutions that stand firm in moments of national danger. 

I humbly appeal that your office considers urgent intervention, whether through strategic financial support or intervention funding by way of Public–Private Partnership arrangements or Institutional support through Lagos State and Federal health agencies.

There is more to the hospital. Saving it will symbolise the recognition and preservation of the hospital as a national centre of medical heritage and infectious disease response. And whatever you do to rescue this hospital, history will be kind to you as one of the leaders who chose to act at moments like this.

I trust in your commitment to human life, public health, and national legacy, and I pray that this appeal receives the urgent attention it deserves.

Please do not allow the name of this woman and this hospital, to die in pain.

Hon. Emma Okah, PhD

Port Harcourt, Rivers State