As a matter of fact, most of the medical doctors parading Nigeria’s hospitals, both private and government owned, have turned themselves into mysterious sex monsters. They have become additional headaches to their female patients, especially and in most cases, married women.
Indeed, the rate at which the so-called doctors, especially, the gynecologists, have been raping married women who turn up for medical solutions to their health challenges, called for serious re-evaluation of their relevance in the society and or the place they should be confined to within the health sector.
For a long time, apart from their arrogance and ‘superior’ complex in the corridor of health centres, reports that have been emanating, either publicly or in hushes, have been that of how doctors take advantage of their female patients to, at best, engage in unsolicited romance and at worse, in destructive immoral sexual escapades, all of which amount to rape.
One of the disgusting and heart-touching cases was the one that happened on April 9, 2016 in a Lagos private hospital, called Sayemi Nature Science Centre, around Ikeja.
Report had it that a housewife, whose name was given simply as Funke, went to the Centre to seek for medical solution to what she suspected was ‘secondary’ infertility. But instead of the doctor, who incidentally owns the hospital, to contribute to her happiness, he deceived her and went ahead to allegedly engage in sexual relation with her.
The woman, in tears, narrated her story thus: “I have a 24 year old son and ever since, all efforts to get pregnant had failed. I have visited different hospitals and prayed endlessly for God to remember me. Luckily, I have an understanding husband who stood by me all these years.
“I knew that I had to do anything possible to ensure that there are children in the house. This was how I picked interest in any programme that talk about fertility. Early in the month, I watched a health programme organized by the Doctor who is the founder of Sayemi Natural Science Centre, Ikeja.
“During the programme, he explained that he had a natural way through which he could heal infertility. I was impressed and I decided to visit his clinic when he explained that my problem could be solved through dieting.
“Last Saturday, with the consent of my husband, I decided to pay him a visit. I bought their clinic card for N2000 and waited for my turn. When I finally saw the doctor, I narrated my medical history and all the efforts that I had made to conceive. He assured me that his clinic would be my last bus stop but he would need to access my body through vaginal scan.
“I knew what vaginal scan meant. Immediately, I stretched my body on the table for examination. Normally, you were expected to lie down and spread your legs widely apart. I trusted the doctor, so I never queried his method.
“He applied cream on my vagina and inserted the instrument used by doctors for normal vaginal scan. The only odd thing he did was to touch my clitoris and I tried to resist and he told me to calm down that this was a perfect process of inducing my hormones so that he could access my body well.
“At that point, I relaxed very well, closed my eyes and spread my legs because my focus was to get solution. At a point, he removed the equipment and inserted it again but this time, it was much bigger. I believed that it was as a result of him fondling with my clitoris that made me to get carried away to the point that I could not tell that the stuff that was bigger inside me was actually his penis.
“It was the noise he made when he was about to ejaculate that drew my attention and I opened my eyes and lo and behold, he was actually having sex with me instead of the scan.
“I was shocked as well as embarrassed. I was terrified because I could not understand if this was the process. He quickly removed the condom and threw it into the waste basket and started begging me to forgive him and allow him to proceed with the treatment. I left his office and complained to the nurse who was on duty and she said that it is not a new thing; that the man is used to sleeping with most of his patients.
“When I discovered what he did, I was terrified because I could not understand why he did that to me. I have heard of how people mysteriously die and my main concern was to leave his office alive that was why I complained bitterly to the nurse.
“When I got home, I told my husband what I went through and he asked me to formally report to the police. Heaven knows that I did not consent to the act. I only had faith in the doctor that he knew what he was doing.
“I am legally married and I am blessed with a great husband. That was why I confided in him. He was the one who encouraged me to be bold enough to report the matter to the police so that such a crime would not continue.”
Yet another woman, Mrs. Vivian Agu, also gave a graphic narration of how a gynecologist in Enugu fondled her breast when she went to his hospital to seek medical attention.
There was this other woman who said that when the doctor she went to consult for her health challenge romanced her, to the extent of fiddling with her clitoris, he (the doctor) asked her if she was feeling honey. When she answered in negative, he had the audacity to tell her that she was a strong woman, because, other women would go on to beg him to ‘do it’ after such extensive, senseless and ungodly ‘touchery.’
These incidences bring to mind, a case of a newly married lady who was taken to by her husband, to a private hospital in the No-Man’s area of Kano city by her husband about 18 years ago. The husband was so convinced he had taken his new wife to a safe hand, seeing that the doctor, who owned the hospital, was a man-of-God. The interior of the hospital was decorated with the portraits and posters of Jesus Christ, with writings that reminded the living of the need to be closer to God.
The supposedly God-fearing, innocent-looking doctor first asked the man, showing some genuine concern for him, to go back to his work promising that he would take good care of his wife, who had taken her place on the queue. The man thanked the doctor, but remained seated, waiting for his wife to be attended to, for him to take her back home.
Despite that the husband was there waiting when his wife was eventually called in, the doctor still romanced her, brought out his manhood and wanted to make love to her. On seeing the doctor’s manhood, the newly married lady shouted and attracted the people in the outer room/reception area, including her husband, to the inner room. The unruly doctor returned his ‘thing’ to the pants, quick enough before the husband of the young lady and others rushed in.
Time has come and quickly too, for the government to address this irresponsibility and ungodly behaviour of most of the doctors in the nation’s health sector. Indeed, doctors who are supposed to be sources of succor to the sick and helpless have turned themselves into monsters, scaring away not just female patients, and even males, who they address as if they are some kind of special specie. It is not clear if moral behaviours and courtesy are not part of the training they receive in their course.
Whatever it is, the government or the system needs to regulate their behaviours to conform with the cultural, religious, social and societal norms or else, they, the doctors, would gradually make the nation’s health centres places to dread by, especially housewives. They need to be helped out before they turn our health institutions into brothels and, more dangerously, into adultery centres. [myad]
