A Life Interrupted

Stella C. Iwuagwu beams happily after successfully defending her doctoral dissertation..

Of all the stories I’ve written about or seen firsthand, Stella’s captures my thoughts and boggles my mind the most. This is perhaps because I know her personally. I knew her BEFORE the accident and I know her AFTER the accident. I think hers is a ‘life interrupted’. For many people who do not realize just the kind of person who Stella is…let me share this with you my dear readers, just to give you a little insight…As I said in my initial post, Stella founded the Center for the Right to Health (CRH), had been studying abroad and returned home to do her dissertation on Nigerian women living with HIV. What I’m about to share happened at the National Assembly 5 or 6 days before her accident…

Stella was invited to a seating of the House Committee on Health. After all the big people with big titles had made their speeches, they were about to close when she raised her hand to speak. The MC ignored her, she then raised both hands, he still ignored her so she stood up with both hands raised. He then asked the chairman what to do; the Chairman (late Hon. Aminu Shuaibu Safana) said, "let her speak we are in a democracy’. When they gave her the microphone, Stella wailed long and loud into the microphone to everyone's shock. Everyone must have been thinking she had gone mad. ‘Not yet’, she said, ‘This is the wail of the people dying in our hospitals. This is the wail of families who have lost their loved ones in our hospitals. I bring you the cries of people dying in their homes because they cannot even make it to the hospital. If any of you were to be in an accident, would you use our health systems as they are? No! You will be flown abroad for the best care at tax payers’ expense. I pray that the cries of the dying people of Nigeria will haunt you until you act for equity and justice. I challenge you in your four-year tenure to make our health care system one that you and yours can use".

By the time she finished talking, she was weeping emotionally. After her speech people gave her a standing ovation, while some people were crying with her, some came and hugged her including the Chairman of the Committee. He then committed to work with CRH to improve health care in Nigeria.

6 days later Stella was in an accident and the rest as they say is history. We later learned from someone that the same Chairman, Hon. Aminu Shuaibu Safana, collapsed at the National Assembly weeks later and was rushed to the National Hospital where he died…what an irony.

Yes…that is the remarkable person Stella Iwuagwu was and still is…a passionate social crusader, striving to bring change, challenging the status quo, and crying out for the masses.

Her current situation evokes different emotions in me and throws up many questions and issues for me. I am grateful to God that she survived the accident and is still with us, I am happy she that she is getting the best in terms of standard of living as a disabled woman in the USA. I feel so proud of her for all she has achieved despite her sudden disability, I am sad because I feel Stella’s pain, she now works twice as hard to make money, she currently goes through 40 hours of physical therapy every week, a lot of times she’s on painkillers which mess up her thought processes and she’s in such a demanding job, I’m sad because she wants to come back to Nigeria and continue her work as a social crusader changing people’s lives, but she cannot because Nigeria cannot offer her the basic standard of living she has become used to in the USA. But most of all I am angry because of the way she was handled at national hospital, I am angry because nothing has been done to compensate Stella for aggravation of her injuries, I am angry because cases like Stella’s abound all across Nigeria and nothing is done. Life is cheap in Nigeria, yes, LIFE IS SO CHEAP IN THIS COUNTRY.

Many times I have asked myself, what if Stella didn’t have friends in high places? What if Stella and her friends couldn’t afford the cost of flying out in a private plane or the cost of spinal surgery? Why were her arms yanked by hefty men from both sides during the x-ray and MRI? Why was it so difficult getting her into the ICU? Why didn’t the doctor on duty order a full spinal MRI same time as the head MRI? Even after they diagnosed the spinal cord injury, all they did was put Stella in a body cast, a process that required tremendous movement on her part, furthering the damage. Why don’t we have a neurosurgeon in National hospital? Why was there no letterhead to write up her report? Why did it take six days to evacuate Stella? Why did no personnel from National Hospital accompany her to Ghana? So many questions…not a single answer.

Stella’s story isn’t just about disability now, her story should evoke a sense of outrage in every Nigerian at home and in diaspora. If you have access to the best of life in diaspora, what about your friends and family in Nigeria? It’s a shame that, 51 yrs after independence we still struggle to have quality healthcare services in Nigeria. The only way a woman won’t die in childbirth is if her husband is rich enough to fly her outside the country to go give birth or just rely on luck. Same thing with even the most basic of health conditions, in Nigeria people die of snakebites, malaria, typhoid, asthma, pregnancy complications, etc. yet we Nigerians remain complacent while our ‘leaders’ send their children to the best schools in UK, US, Europe, etc, access the best medical care abroad, live in the best houses abroad while we’re content to lie low and be the underdogs eating crumbs for the table that’s rightfully ours.

The Nigerian constitution guarantees every citizen the right to life, right to healthcare, right to education, etc. when facilities that should cater to these rights don’t exist, haven’t our rights been violated? How can Stella access justice? Or do we chant the usual Nigerian mantra and say…leave everything to God?

Below is an excerpt from an email Stella sent to me when I told her that I’d published her story on my blog, it released the floodgates from my eyes…

Nne,
You made me cry. I cried from so many emotions…thanksgiving, pain, pride, grace…then when the song said ‘I made it through the rain’ I thought in my mind, yes, I made it through the STORM, but the RAIN continues. The rain continues as much as I continue to suffer chronic pains and disability. I am still in the rain as long as I continue to live in the US because I cannot really get quality health care or be able to go to my office in Nigeria because it is in the fourth floor and there is no elevator. I am still in the rain when many buildings in Nigeria are not accessible. I am still in the rain, because I realize how lucky I am in the US while there are millions of Nigerians with disabilities with little or no care or quality of life. When it rains on one it rains on all of us...Thank you so much Irene for telling my story, but do not praise me too much, I am just human with my failings. All I ask if for God to show me his purpose for my new life, that all these pain and suffering should not be in vain…


I’m not quite sure how to end this, so I’ll just say God help us all…

Duchess