The man who sparked an Ebola scare at the Mandeville Regional Hospital in Manchester last week, says the Jamaican health system is not prepared to deal with the disease, should it arrive on our shores.
Dr. Bob Banjo is a Nigerian who has lived in Jamaica for nearly thirty years.
He visited the hospital on October 17, apparently suffering from a bout of food poisoning, which left him feeling dizzy and caused him to vomit.
But panicked medical staff raised an alarm, that he was showing symptoms of Ebola.
That claim resulted in him being confined to a room for nearly 10 hours as hospital staff wondered what to do.
Dr. Bob Banjo, an engineer, visited his homeland, Nigeria on July 16.
He spent six weeks in the capital, Lagos and returned to Jamaica on August 27.
Nigeria has had 19 cases of Ebola and seven deaths.
All the fatalities have been linked to a Liberian man who flew to Lagos in July.
The outbreak caused health authorities in Nigeria to launch a massive public health campaign.
This week, the World Health Organization declared the country Ebola-free after 42 days with no new cases.
Ebola has an incubation period of 21 days, during which a person can carry the virus before beginning to show symptoms.
So when Dr. Banjo showed up at the Mandeville Regional Hospital on October 11 with symptoms of vomiting and fever, it set off panic among medical staff and patients.
Dr. Banjo says he was left alone in a room and security was instructed to prevent him from leaving.
This while doctors made checks with health authorities in Kingston.
At least one nurse refused to take his temperature.
During this time, Dr. Banjo says he was never informed that he was suspected of having Ebola.
The hospital’s Senior Medical Officer, Dr. Everton McIntosh, was called in.
At about 2pm and after being at the hospital for eight hours, Dr. Banjo was finally given the all-clear.
Another doctor attended to him and wrote him a prescription for rehydration fluids and blood pressure medication and told him to go home.
Dr. Banjo says staff at the hospital were unprofessional in their handling of the matter.
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