Man Cries Out For Help As Mother Goes Missing From Popular Psychiatric Hospital In Lagos

Coolestafrican_kid, a young man on Instagram, has called out the management of the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Yaba after his mother went missing while in the facility. 

The victim, Isioma Phebian John was said to have been last seen at the facility on Friday, February 25 when she was taken for medical care. 

The aggrieved young man who took to his Instagram page explained that his brother had taken their mother who suffers from dementia to the facility to seek medical attention only for her to go missing while he was scouting for her medication. 

According to him, the mother, Isioma John, had been living with the condition for a while but for lack of money, she was kept at home while her children worked hard to gather money for her treatment. 

He said the family was glad that a cure had been found for the mother's condition but unfortunately, she went missing. 

Efforts to get the CCTV footage of the hospital to know what exactly happened to his mother have proved abortive, he said. 

He added that while making the demand, a female nurse who claimed to be a chief nurse had threatened to get him and his siblings arrested for asking about the whereabouts of their mother. 

The young man has since called out the management of the hospital as he queried if they had sold his mother off to money ritualists. 

He said, “For two days now, I've been looking for my mother. A lot of you don't know, my mom has dementia and I've been working tirelessly to earn enough to admit her to Yaba Psychiatric hospital because she's been at home, we've been taking care of her as much as we could. 

“Then on Friday, my brother took my mum to Yaba psychiatric hospital, he got there by 8 o'clock in the morning and they saw two psychiatrists who examined my mum and then by 4 pm, some drugs were prescribed that he went to get.

“He was told to get the drugs at some building in the hospital. He left my mum at the counter to go and pay for the drugs so after this, he went back to the counter to pick up my mum, so happy because we have all been hoping that she will get the help that she needs. 

“We had no helper, we were devastated, we were finally able to raise the money, I had to work harder to get the help she needed and then they took her to the psychiatric hospital where she was examined and prescribed drugs. My brother went to get the drugs and on coming back, he couldn't find my mum. 

“He started running around the whole hospital, asking everybody in the hospital if they've seen her. No one paid attention to him, he went everywhere. He was screaming, running helter-skelter, looking for my mum and no one was ready to listen to him, they only said they don't know where my mum is, that they don't know who she is and so on at a hospital that is established to give help to the exact people they said they give help to.

“As if that was not enough, he went there yesterday to try and see what we could do to... I don't even know. We went there yesterday to ask them what the next step will be because they said she walked out and it is not in their jurisdiction. 

“I don't understand, they have CCTV, we asked if we could see the footage to know exactly what happened. This is Yaba psychiatric hospital, are they selling human beings? Have they sold my mum to a ritualist, what is happening exactly?

“What kind of country is this, Lord? I haven't cheated anybody, I haven't done anything wrong, I worked hard, saved enough to take my mum to a place where they said they render the kind of help she needs and now she's missing. For two days now, I don't know where she's sleeping. I don't know what my mum is eating.

“Yesterday we went there, we asked them, they said she should get some pictures, we printed them, took the pictures there, pasted some at the gate, we went to the police station, Sabo Police Station and they said it's only when it's over 24 hours which it was because it was exactly at 4 pm my brother couldn't find my mum on Friday. 

“We went to the hospital and asked that we see the CCTV footage at least to know where to start from, they started giving different stories and then one chief nurse came out and threatened to get us arrested. Is it because they think I am nobody? Or because I didn't come with some cars or some people. This is not even about me again. This country is finished.”