Buhari pays N268,790 hospital bill for gunshot survivor who lost a kidney

Officials at National Hospital say 15-year-old Deborah Stephen, who suffered a gunshot wound when armed robbers invaded her home, continues to receive treatment after President Muhammadu Buhari directed her N268,790 medical bill be covered. President Buhari had given the directive on Sunday when he visited survivors of Friday night’s multiple bomb explosions hospitalised at the […]

Officials at National Hospital say 15-year-old Deborah Stephen, who suffered a gunshot wound when armed robbers invaded her home, continues to receive treatment after President Muhammadu Buhari directed her N268,790 medical bill be covered.

President Buhari had given the directive on Sunday when he visited survivors of Friday night’s multiple bomb explosions hospitalised at the hospital.

Chief Medical Director Dr Jafaru Momoh said Stephen’s medical bills have “been settled”, and the hospital was continuing to keep her under watch.

Stephen, 15, was shot when armed robbers raided her family home and brought to hospital with severe abdominal injuries since September 19.

Her mother, Gwani Duniya, said the family had to borrow N250,000 which ran out long ago.

She said the hospital planned to send them away when they couldn’t afford more money to continue Stephen’s treatment. But the hospital said it was the family who attempted to leave hospital earlier.

Duniya has also complained of shortage of provisions as food since Sunday, and the hospital management Tuesday evening informed her of her free access to any necessary provision at the hospital’s disposal following the President’s footing her daughter’s medical bill.

Stephen has gone through surgeries in which surgeons removed one kidney damaged in the shooting, then cut and stapled part of her intestine outside her body to enable her excrete.

One end of her bowel opens into a transparent plastic bag, which her family have had to improve, to catch excrement.