By REMEMBERING AN ICON (AMEYO ADADEVOH STELLA)
By Timi Obafemi
Today the world rises in salute to the memory of the Nigerian physician, Dr Stella Adadevoh.
The very professional and most patriotic Adadevoh died on 19th August, 2014 from complications arising from the ebola infection she contracted in the course of defending her city and nation from an imminent scourge. She has since then gone on record as about the single most significant human presence that helped Africa’s most populous nation from being caught in the vortex of the wide range spread of the Ebola virus in Nigeria.
Notably, Dr Ameyo Stella Adadevoh, who is survived by her husband, Afolabi and son Bankole, equally hails from very noble pedigree as she is a grandniece to the late nationalist, Engineer Herbert Macaulay. Equally, her own father, Babatunde Kwaku Adadevoh who was also a physician was equally a former chancellor of the University of Lagos.
On her part, Stella Adadevoh graduated from the University of Lagos College of Medicine with a Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery degree and also served in the famous Lagos University Teaching Hospital in 1981.
She is credited as having made the critical call to the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Health alerting them of her suspicion that her patient who had just come in for treatment from Liberia may have symptoms of the troubling H1N1 virus and as such needed to be restrained. It was in the course of her insisting on his remaining under observation at the hospital, and contrary to his insistence on being discharged that she was herself to be infected.
Dr Adadevoh succumbed to the Ebola virus diseases whilst in quarantine and passed away on 19 August 2014 in Lagos, Nigeria. Her body was decontaminated by the government after contaminating the virus. Subsequent upon her tragic loss, the Dr Ameyo Adadevoh Health Trust (DRASA) a non – profit health organization was established in her honour.
Nigerian matyr, Dr. Stella Adadevoh
Comments