A Medical Doctor, Dr. Harvey Olufunmilayo, has offered detailed explanation on the face-off between a couple and nurses at the University College Hospital, Ibadan, Oyo State.
The couple, in a video by some tagged as anti-religious, insisted the wife must enter the children’s ward with hijab.
The nurses stood their ground that it is the rule and not based on religious or ethnic considerations.
The husband said the wife can’t do without her hijab if their sick child would be treated in the health facility.
But Dr. Olufunmilayo said the nurses did the ideal by insisting on the lady removing her hijab before proceeding into the children’s intensive care unit.
He said as a comment to the video: “I saw this post and I initially wanted to ignore it. But I realise there’s a lot of ignorance on display which needs urgent immediate correction.
“This is a deliberately misleading sinister headline written to stir up emotions and sentiments using religion as a tool to make us lose our collective sanity. Please do NOT fall for it.
“I would take my time to carefully and thoroughly explain what has happened here as a doctor who has himself once worked at UCH Ibadan. This is a long read but please bear with me.
“The hospital nurses in this video are very right, very disciplined and very professional on this. This place where they work is called a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, shortened as NICU.
“A Neonatal intensive care unit is a special unit in the hospital dedicated to premature babies and babies under 28days of life who are very sick, very vulnerable and many of whom are on life support machine to survive.
“The slightest seemingly little infection can cause widespread deaths for these very little tiny babies. An integral part of infection control measure is that there are rules and policies mandated to ensure that NOBODY is allowed beyond a certain point with any clothing or jewellery they’ve worn from outside.
“This is NOT about religion, this is about strict infection prevention among little tiny vulnerable sick babies who are in an intensive care unit dedicated to keep them alive. Some of those babies are inside incubators, some of them were barely 7months in the womb when they had to be taken out of their mothers and so they are very vulnerable, very weak and very prone to easy death from the littlest infectious organism if they are exposed to it.
“The rule will apply to anyone and everyone equally wether they are a reverend sister wearing a catholic outfit, or an Anglican bishop wearing a cassock, or a Jewish cleric wearing a skull cap, or a traditional native doctor wearing calabash on his neck. It will NOT matter.
“Even medical doctors are NOT allowed to wear hospital ward coats inside that place. They have to change into special outfits with a headcap and face mask. This is a rule that will be insisted on without prejudice or favouritism EVEN IF it is the Governor of the state, or the president of the country that wants to enter the ward. Because again, this is about infection control- and nothing else.
“So in other words, it is NOT the case that ‘uch ibadan rejects sick newborn baby over mother’s refusal to remove her niqab’ as this post says. It is that the mother of this sick newborn baby has chosen a piece of clothing ahead of the life of her sick newborn baby. The parent of this sick baby have decided they will rather watch their own child die than comply with simple hospital instructions that are put in place for the benefit of their own sick baby as well as other sick babies in that special ward.
“That anyone will twist this simple hospital rule into a narrative about hijab is terribly unfortunate and totally unacceptable.
“This headline is in many ways a very deliberate misinformation to rile up some moronic terrorist criminals (who hide under a twisted version of religious extremism) and may then go to attack this hospital to burn it down or assault these innocent hardworking nurses who have done absolutely nothing wrong. This is an intentional dog whistle to get this hospital attacked and putting these nurses’ lives in danger for insisting on what is right to save the lives of the babies they serve.
UCH Nurses turns down Hijab wearing mother from entering children intensive care unit, offer reason
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— The Eagle Online (@DEagleOnline) February 3, 2024
Eagle Online
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