Julie seeks Reps’ help over stolen kidney

UNLESS immediate diplomatic intervention comes her way, the fate of a Nigerian citizen, Mrs. Julie Osamese Ihdehyen, from Edo State, but now urgently seeking medical attention in an Italian hospital, hangs in the balance.

Julie’s predicament is said to have followed the ill treatment meted to her by some Italian “medical criminals’ in an Italian hospital known as Amideos Avoya hospital.

A petition from Iyke Ezeugo, a Brekete family consultant, dated November 24, 2015 and specifically addressed to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara in respect of an allegation of stolen kidney and attempted murder of Julie Ihdehyen, is already before the parliament for immediate legislative intervention.

However, the Chairman, House Committee on Diaspora, Rita Orji, who submitted the petition on the floor of the parliament, has assured that the National Assembly will get to the root of the matter with a view to ensuring that the victim gets justice.

Orji told The Guardian that now that the matter has come to light, the House would expedite action on the petition and immediately set up a committee to look into the matter to make sure Ihdehyen’s life is rescued from the threshold of death.

In 2008, Julie was said to have had symptoms of malaria, which made her seek medical attention at the Amideos Avoya hospital. After series of tests carried out on her, she was confirmed fit and subsequently released by the hospital, as there was no medical challenge with her health.

However, in 2009, her health deteriorated, hence she went back to the same hospital where she was diagnosed of Urinary Track Infection, which needed treatment in a different hospital. She was referred to the Sejuale Bosko Hospital, Italy for further treatment.

She recounted that she was given sedatives, which kept her unconscious before she was taken to the new hospital and that when she woke up, she realized that she had been tied up and was in company of a male doctor and two female assistants, who were in the process of injecting her with an unknown substance.

She sought to know why she was being injected the substance but was instead manhandled by the doctor and his assistants and injected the said substance against her wish, which made her suffer memory loss and left her paralyzed.

She was thereafter abandoned for about a week before she gained consciousness. She asked what had happened to her but never got any response until she was moved to another room to join a patient before she realized that her kidney had been stolen from her.

Julie recounted further that on a fateful day while still in her hospital bed, the hospital personnel, whom she referred to as “medical criminal” came again, pinned her stomach to the hospital bed and forcefully cut open her torso, pouring a substance which smelt like alcohol to the sour cut.

After this experience, Julie claimed she suffered severe indigestion, torso cut, restlessness and other medical challenges for more than 10 months.

Suspecting that her health condition was going worse, the hospital management began to bring in different doctors to examine her condition. It was eventually confirmed that Julie had been battered and disfigured beyond medical treatment. She alleged that the hospital began to administer her with injection meant for retarded patients for more than five months and abandoned to die.

The same ‘medical criminals’ visited me again and said I must be treated for Ridolo, a condition that has tampered with my spinal cord, as well as receive treatment for lumpus, which is likely to make me loose my mind. I was referred to another hospital. It was at the new hospital that I began to recover from the memory loss. Already, my personal documents had been seized from me.

In a twist of fate, sometime in 2013, representatives from the Italian government recovered and returned her seized documents and medical reports from the hospital. “However, to my amazement, it was never recorded that my kidney was stolen. Part of the documents returned to me through the Italian government included a forged medical certificate indicating that I gave my consent to all the treatment I received from the ‘medical criminals,’” she narrated.

Meanwhile, the petitioners have also prayed the House of Representatives to take adequate steps to ensure that Nigerian diplomatic missions in all countries live up to their responsibilities in defending and protecting vulnerable Nigerians in the countries of their assignment.

Arguing that the treatment meted to Ihdehyen was a crime against humanity, which the perpetrators must be made to answer for, the petitioners are seeking urgent medical attention to be arranged for Julie in the United States or Germany, while also urging that the Nigerian Ambassador to Italy be invited by the Federal Government to account for why Julie should be treated with such indignity without his intervention.