Hospitals stop treatment of building collapse victims over nonpayment of bills

Victims of the Ochanja Market building collapse in Onitsha, Anambra State, have lamented over non-treatment due to failure to pay their medical bills.

According to the spokesman of the victims, Mr Simon Chijioke, the hospitals treating them are no longer treating them because there is no money to pay their bills.

Though the state Governor, Prof Charles Soludo, had promised to pay the medical bills of the surviving victims, Chijioke said: “The hospitals providing medical attention to the victims have stopped further treatment of those victims on the ground that they cannot afford to pay for their medicare.”

According to him, they have resigned to fate, while waiting for the promise of the governor to offset their medical bills.

Meanwhile, the leadership of the market has given N700,000 to the 27 surviving persons of the building collapse at the Ochanja market.

Chijioke, who fell from the two-storey building and had a fracture, said the market leaders through their women wing gave 27 of them N20,000 and some N23,000 each to take care of their medical expenses. 

“They made sure that everyone of us got something and it is not the amount that matters but the heart and intention to assist us and we commend them for that,” he stated.

He, however, said that the number of those working at the site before the building collapsed was 125 persons, noting that despite the six persons confirmed dead, two more persons later died at White Chapel Hospital Onitsha.