The Guild of Medical Directors, Federal Capital Territory (FCT) branch has called on the Federal government to declare August 19, a national holiday in memory of late Dr Stella Ameyo Adadevoh.
The medical directors said she made a huge sacrifice in protecting millions of Nigerians from Ebola disease and that according her the honour was long overdue.
In a statement signed by Dr Biodun Ogungbo, Public Relations Officer of the Guild, they said she deserved a befitting honour and not some meaningless title or coin which would soon fall out of use.
They said that she wouldn’t be easily forgotten with a national holiday. “That way, some Nigerian child in six decades can ask his parent, “Mummy, who is Stella Ameyo Adadevoh?” And the parent can reply, “That woman saved my life, and the lives of all of us”. It is the least we can do. It is the least we should do,” the medical directors said in the statement.
Dr Adadevoh who is a great grand-daughter of Herbert Macaulay, one of Nigeria’s foremost nationalist and political leaders worked at First Consultant Hospital Obalende, Lagos, a private hospital.
She helped prevent the spread of Ebola in the country through Patrick Sawyer, a Liberian (and first index case of the disease in Nigeria) who had come in to the country and was treated at the hospital in July 2014.
She was the lead consultant physician and endocrinologist at the hospital.
