Patience Jonathan Yet To Stabilise - German Hospital

BY ABIODUN OLUWAROTIMI/LEADERSHIP NEWSPAPERS

Horst Schmidt Klinik in Wiesbaden, Germany, where First Lady Patience Jonathan is presently being treated has confirmed that she would not be discharged so soon, a development that is contrary to frequent reports from the presidency that the ailing first lady would return to the country by the end of this week.

One of the consultants with President Jonathan’s wife told our foreign correspondent during a telephone dialogue on Wednesday that the condition of the ailing first lady had not improved up to the expectations of the medical team.

Although the consultant who did not want her name to be mentioned disclosed that the presidency was making serious efforts for Mrs Jonathan to be discharged before the end of this week so she could travel with the president to New York where she will be expected to lead some side events at the ongoing 67th United Nations General Assembly.

During the telephone dialogue that lasted about five minutes, the source further said there was no way the ailing first lady could be discharged now as a result of her unstable health situation, stressing that the management of the hospital had communicated with the federal government in writing as regards the impossibility of discharging her as proposed by the presidency.

She said: “They wanted us to discharge Mrs Patience Jonathan but we have notified the Nigerian government through its embassy here that we will not be able to discharge our patient at this time because her situation is not stable. We still need to monitor her very well before we can ask her to proceed on any long distance trip.

“Our response to the Nigerian government as regards the condition of our client here was communicated through the Nigerian embassy in Germany. We cannot discharge her now. She has to remain with us until her deteriorating health condition improves.”

Ask ed the real cause of her ailment, the consultant who declined to go into details confirmed that Mrs Jonathan had undergone some intestinal operations to keep her tummy firm -- a process, she said, led to poisoning and complications.

“Those operations that were performed on Mrs Patience Jonathan led to a ruptured stomach and I think that was the reason she was fainting and as well having abdominal pains before she was brought here for treatment,” the source said.

She however stressed that the doctors working with the first lady would perform some other operations on her at the beginning of next week if her condition does not improve as expected.

The presidency had earlier maintained that the ailing Mrs Jonathan was only in Germany to rest until LEADERSHIP spoke with a spokesperson of Horst Schmidt Klinik in Wiesbaden, Germany, that confirmed that Nigeria’s first lady was truly on admission in the hospital, and receiving treatment after being operated on for ruptured appendix, which was as a result of food poisoning.

During LEADERSHIP’s investigation, then, a senior consultant of the hospital who refused to mention her name, said that one Mrs Jonathan was brought to the hospital after the management of the hospital had been contacted and briefed on the deteriorating health condition of the first lady.

She also confirmed that she was brought into the hospital in a very bad state of health but was then responding to treatment after she had undergone a major surgery to take away the poisons in her intestine.

The hospital’s official, who confirmed that initial records, showed that Mrs Jonathan had earlier been treated for food poisoning in Nigeria, however, declined to mention the time that she would be discharged from the hospital.

She said that Mrs Jonathan was getting better but insisted that the hospital management would ensure that she was fully fit before she would be allowed to go back to Nigeria.

LEADERSHIP reliably gathered that the mobile sets of the personal aides to Patience Jonathan were seized upon their arrival at the German Hospital in order to avoid further leakage of secret information on the health status of the ailing first lady.