Speaking
on the matter, the House of Representatives member, Rita Orji said:
“After taking the drugs for one week, she came back to report how she
was feeling. On that day, she was asked if she came to the hospital
alone, and she said, ‘yes’ innocently without knowing the reason why
that question was put across to her. That marked, the beginning of her
paralysis. She was asked to lie down that they were going to give her
some medication. Within two, three minutes, she was approached with a
mixture in a cup and she drank it, believing that it was for the fever
she complained of. But she became dizzy and she was telling them how she
felt. But they said there was no problem. Suddenly, the team of doctors
came around and tied her legs and her hands on the bed and she started
shouting, ‘why are you tying me’? She said one of the doctors responded
that she could shout at the top of her voice, but that nobody would know
what was being done. That was how they faced her down and gave her
injection on her base bone. After the injection, she passed out. When
she finally regained consciousness, she saw that the lower part of the
buttocks on both sides had been chopped off, to the extent that the
bones in her buttocks had cracked and she saw the pieces of the bones.
Also her bladder was disengaged from the source with urine pouring out
uncontrollably. In fact, she woke up on a catheter and a big plaster by
the region of her kidney. They started moving Madam Julie from one
hospital to the other. It is the norm that when you are being
transferred to any hospital, the ambulance in which a patient is
transferred goes with a medical report. But in Julie’s case, nothing
like that was done. They dumped her into one ambulance to drop her in
one home or the other without attaching her medical history. They kept
her, thinking she would die. At a stage, she was only living on prayers.
They finally dropped her at the seventh medical Centre. During our
investigations, I asked what the reasons for moving her from one place
to the other were. There is no answer to that. What they were telling us
is that she is mentally Ill. She is diabetic. But I want to tell you
that all these stories are unfounded. No one has the confirmation of
these health conditions they told us she suffers from based on medical
ground. On our arrival at that place, we conducted a test and found that
Julie is not diabetic. The scan that was carried out on her, and we
have the result, shows that her kidney was tampered with. This is what
the woman has been shouting about for the past eight years, and nobody
seems to believe her. Today it is Julie, tomorrow
I don’t know who it will be. On their final stop, they dumped her in a
mental home, a woman of thirty something years, dumped in a mental home
that harbours old men and women that are demented.”
Also
speaking on the matter, a medical doctor and another member of the
committee who represents Itu/Ibiono Ibom federal constituency, Henry
Okon -Archibong, says due to the poor treatment meted to Julie, she can
never walk again
“From
what happened, they might have tried to give her anaesthesia before
they harvested the kidney. In doing that, they damaged the lumber and
sacred nerves. So, there is no way Julie can walk again. Julie has been
paralysed and the issue of walking has nothing to do with what we are
calling for. She has to be compensated, the medical doctors that
participated in what led to her current situation have to be dealt with
as the law permits. Indeed, the committee is demanding that the Italian
government investigate Julie Osamese’s case with a view to fishing out
the medical personnel whose highly unprofessional conduct led to the
loss of one of her kidneys and her permanent confinement to a
wheelchair. The lawmakers are also asking for the highest form of
compensation and a complete rehabilitation of the mother of one, who
they said have been the subject of several protests by the Nigerian
community in Italy. The action that will satisfy us as lawmakers starts
from the whole world condemning the injustice meted out to an innocent
person. We are saying that there should be a holistic compensation and a
new medical team should conduct an analysis of Madam Julie’s situation
and proffer the best way to get her life back on track. She has lost
hope on the medical doctors around her. So, I will advise that they have
to look for another medical team that are not from Turin to carry out
this job.”
The
lawmakers are demanding the minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey
Onyeama to institute a panel of inquiry into the matter with a view of
determining the role of the staff of the Nigerian High Commission in
Italy, whom they accused of negligence.
“You
can’t believe that when the relations of this lady were at the
hospital, a woman named Deborah told them what she had been put
through. She gave them documents to back her claims and told these
relatives of hers to run to the Nigerian High Commission in Rome, to
inform them of what happened. Those documents were given to one Madam
Martina and Mr. Folorunsho who are staff of the commission. But no one
asked after her (Osamese) since 2009. They never went to visit her. They
didn’t even keep the documents handed over to them. When we demanded
for them, they denied ever receiving the documents. For us, the
recklessness of the Nigeria High Commission in Italy as at then, caused
the terrible situation we see. Assuming they intervened on time, the
situation of this woman will not be this bad,” Rita Orji added
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