My Negative 🦠 Experience

 

Jon came home from a day golfing in the hot Abuja sun and complained of feeling achy. So we cancelled plans to go out and eat with friends. Jon did not feel better the next day, so he contacted his principal. We were working from home anyway, teaching remotely, so COVID wasn't even part of the equation. Jon was told to go and get a Malaria test, or even just take some Malaria medication and feel better.

But the next day I began to have symptoms, so I encouraged Jon to go and get tested. Testing isn't easy, cheap or reliable here in Nigeria, but it was our only option. We waited three days for the results, and several phone calls to the clinic suggested they had lost Jon's COVID test. Meanwhile we self-quarantined and my symptoms worsened. By the end of the week I couldn't get out of bed and had a fever of 103°. Still, without the test result, it was difficult to make a case that I was sick, and I ended up attending the staff meeting from bed. Jon was feeling much better and was shocked to finally receive a positive test result. I was relieved in a way, now I could be sick in peace and finally get some sick days.

There was no immediate relief.  First we had to go through the school's contact tracing briefing. This meant answering hundreds of questions to determine who I might have exposed, and what exactly my symptoms were. And, for some reason, we couldn't take it for granted that I had COVID just because Jon had tested positive and I had all the symptoms including a burning throat and difficulty breathing.  Jon was told to quarantine and teach from home, I was told to go and get a COVID test. What I really wanted was some drugs that might give me some relief. 

A school driver took me down to the testing site.  I wondered if anyone else in the drive-through lot was actually sick like I was, or if everyone else was there just for the purpose of travel.  At $150 the test tends to be for expats only.  My Head of School was there getting tested himself, and suggested I might want to go to a hospital. I didn't know of any hospital in Abuja but was willing to go and see a doctor for a chance to get a prescription for some meds. 

The medical facility turned out to be difficult to find, and after several wrong turns and stops to ask for directions, my driver finally drove me into a gated compound that was definitely not a hospital. It looked more like a construction site where the house was either being renovated or had been abandoned.  I was led through a side door into the house and found it no better inside. I had to step over what appeared to be a puddle of blood on the floor to sit myself down on a plastic chair.

A thirteen year old girl dressed as a nurse took my phone number and made a show of listening to my lungs with a stethoscope. I did not see any PPE, hand sanitizer or even a device to take my temperature. I was then told I needed to be admitted.  As I was wrapping my head around the idea, the girl went on to ask for a deposit of 2.5 million Naira ($7000).  I told her I didn't have that sort of money, but I would like a prescription for some medication.  She reluctantly agreed to give me the drugs and wrote out a long prescription.  I then needed to go get the drugs from the pharmacy. When I asked the girl where that was, she didn't know. So I wandered outside and round the back of the building. Suddenly two people blocked my path. One introduced himself as the manager, and the petite woman with him was the pharmacist. She grabbed my prescription angrily and took off. I followed her and found her berating the young nurse because apparently drugs are only for admitted patients. Admitted patients? Where would these poor souls be hiding?  

The manager unlocked a door to what could have been an office, but looked more like a store cupboard. He told me to wait there and left. Feeling about to faint, I considered lying on the floor, but the blood spatter put me off. I don't know how long I was there, but it didn't take much to realize that no one was coming to my aid. I staggered outside to find my driver, explaining that I needed to go elsewhere to get medication.  At this point my HOS intervened and persuaded them to give me something. It was explained that I would have to wait as their system was down. I opted to wait in the car, where I could at least rest my head. 

At long last I was given the nod that I could go back to the pharmacy and get my prescription. It turned out the pharmacy was a prefab shed or outbuilding in the rear of the property. And no one was too pleased when I walked in there! After several employees yelled at me to get out, the manager looked around for another place for me to wait. He opened an empty shed where I found a small mini-fridge to sit on. 

I was surprised to see the diminutive pharmacist show up with a bag of medication. But I couldn't have it until I paid. "Where do I pay?" She didn't know.  Why did everyone working here act like it was their first day on the job?

Despite my symptoms I was motivated to get my meds and leave, so I found two men taking money from a card table out in the parking lot. There didn't seem to be any queue so I pushed up as close as I could get to the table, figuring they couldn't ignore me. I asked for their bank account so I could do a transfer on my phone. Unsurprisingly they had no idea, and one man went inside to inquire. He came out with a crumpled piece of paper covered with doodles, notes and scribbled numbers. Upon closer inspection I found some larger numbers with a bank name, plugged it into my phone and the payment went through. I didn't wait for a receipt, but went off in search of my tiny pharmacist and her bag of drugs. The thirteen-year-old nurse made one last effort to persuade me to stay and be admitted. No... if I stayed here my dead body would be found weeks later in a storage cupboard or slumped against the bags of cement in the back yard. 

I finally arrived home to find my COVID test had come back negative. I remember breaking down in tears with the realization that I would be expected to go back to work.

Ironically, ten days later I tested positive and was finally admitted into the very same medical facility I visited to get the meds.  I spend three hellish days in their isolation ward which consists of a newly built room behind the crumbling house.  It didn't take long to realize that their incompetence and outright neglect meant that they wouldn't notice if I left.  I called Jon who met me in the parking lot after I simply walked unseen out the door, with no medical staff on site to stop me.