Dear Mr President,
I write to you with deep sense of grief regarding the unfortunate accident that befell us Nigerians in the passing of a handsome, young and talented gentleman Mr John Paul Obumneme Odonwodo. However, I am filled with great optimism that this is a perfect opportunity for us to make necessary changes and start doing things slightly differently. The history of Nollywood is one that depicts the entrepreneurship and doggedness of the average Nigerian youth. Nollywood has grown from grass in the early 1990’s to the second biggest film industry in the world today only second to India’s Bollywood. Nollywood currently contributes more than 2% of our National Gross Domestic Product, directly and indirectly employing more than two and half million Nigerians and supporting thousands of businesses.
It is very important that we all support Nollywood whichever way possible. The influence of Nollywood on the mentality and psyche of the average Nigerian child or youth is immeasurable. Nollywood products provide entertainment as well as information to the public and considering the reach it has, has a huge educational potential that needs to be harnessed.
I wish to refer to the recent series of incidents that led to the unfortunate loss of one of your young and talented actors. In retrospect, one might argue that the accident was avoidable and there was ample missed opportunity to minimise morbidity and mortality on the victims. Although that was not properly utilised, we can start now to look for the proverbial dark goat before it gets darker. As the Igbos will say, Taa ka bu gboo; loosely translating as it is still early days, we can make use of this opportunity to start thinking how we can do things differently.
Irrespective of the foregoing, I will commend you and your team for your efforts in trying to get to the problem by putting out an immediate statement following the accident and setting up a safety committee which you also head. I hope your committee will be able to come up solid measures to ensure safety of your members on and off set.
One of the obvious occurrences in this whole debacle is the action and reaction of bystanders to the victims. From the video clips circulating on the various social media platforms, there was no visible active resuscitation efforts on the victims after their extraction from the water. Subsequently social media news has it that the victims were taken straight to the mortuary without first getting a Medical Doctors assessment. To add salt to injury, when they were advised to take the victim to the hospital, they made a conscious decision to first take the victim to a ritualist instead.
Will I blame the bystanders for what they did, no. You cannot give what you don’t have. If the bystanders knew that for every minute that passes without the brain getting blood and Oxygen, the chance of irreversible brain damage and morbidity increases a great fold; they might have done things differently. At five to ten minutes of depriving the brain of Oxygen, it would have suffered very serious irreversible damage that even if the person survives the assault, they might end up with serious disability. In essence time is of critical importance in management of anyone that is unwell and may not be able to breath by him or herself. Neurologists will say that “Time is Brain.” You can agree with me therefore that the bystanders surrounding the victims in the clip circulating online were just standing by and not really helping the victims the way they should. Like I said, will I blame them. My answer again will be no.
At this point, I know you are wondering what I want you to do. There is absolutely no doubt that a good majority of Nigerians patronise the products of your members. You can educate as well as entertain them. I wish you and your members via your industry unleash the power in your hands to educate the masses on various very important life saving techniques like by stander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), techniques of removing foreign body from choking victims and other simple emergency techniques to save life and limb in the community. Over time people will imbibe the principle of these out of hospital life or limbs saving techniques and will use them when the need arises.
Help is around the corner as there are members of several medical organisations within and outside the country that are willing to give pro bono consultation to script writers, film directors, and producers on the correct and helpful by stander lifesaving procedures in different medical emergencies that can be incorporated in the movies for the general education and entertainment of the masses. On request, groups like the Association of Medical Doctors in Ireland (A.N.D.I), Medical Advocacy Group (MDLAG) an online group comprising of Nigerian Medical Doctors from all over the world and from different specialties, have numerous members that are happy to offer this free consultancy services to your producers, script writers and members on these up to date lifesaving procedures that can be employed by the layman in the society.
May I suggest that you and your able team consider putting up a guiding law mandating your members to pick up roles in only movies that have met a minimum requirement of correct and useful educational message regarding lifesaving measures that can be used by the layman outside the hospital. This will go a long way in educating the public and help in saving more lives. I must say that I am not related to, a friend or an acquaintance of Mr Odonwodo but it is my opinion that it will be nice if such a law be named Junior Pope Law after Mr John Paul Obumneme Odonwodo whose incident inspired this. I do hope that on the long run, these changes will help bring necessary atitudinal changes to members of the public in the way they attend to out of hospital health emergencies.
Many thanks,
Dr Stephen Onyebuchi Obidike,
an Emergency Physician writing from the United Kingdom.
