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Quinine injection which is said to be very good for malaria is taking its toll on many of its users. Some are said to have gone blind, some permanently losing their hearing and some collapsing immediately after its use.
Senior Aviation Security Officer, Mohamed Sylvester Kamara recently became a victim after a nurse at Suktarr Government Hospital, Lungi, inadvertently injected him with the wrong dose.
The nurse, it is said injected direct into the veins of Mr. Kamara six ampoules of the injection in three days of treatment.
Relatives of the dead man said that he began to feel the reaction of the treatment as soon as it started.
"He went stone deaf on that very day," the wife of the late Mr. Kamara, Feimata, said.
The widow said that Mr. Kamara's health also deteriorated there and then. On the 24th February, he lost his life dying at Mahera Hospital.
When Peep went to the hospital it found it in a very sorry state. Only one untrained nurse and a dispenser were found attending to over forty patients who were admitted.
Inside one ward, Peep found men and women admitted together. Wards stank and feel eerie.
Patients wore their own clothes which were mostly filthy.
Just by the mortuary, was found a pile of rubbish. Inside the mortuary rats gnawed at Mr. Kamara's body taking away parts of his face.
When contacted the doctor in charge of Suktarr Hospital, Dr. James A.C. Konteh neither accepted nor denied that Mr. Kamara died of an overdose of Quinine injection.
He said instead that the mater needed further investigation.
According to Dr. Olabisi Claudius Cole of West End Clinic, Quinine is very good for malaria but can be lethal with the wrong dose.
"Patients must not fear that quinine sometimes reacts badly," Dr. Cole said. "It must however be taken under either a doctor or qualified pharmacist's supervision. |
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