A Junior Secondary School III student, Safiya Abbas Ahmed,
has had her finger amputated after applying lizard droppings to a
festering knife cut wound on it, DailyTrust reports.
A
source in the school who said the Education Ministry has already waded
into the matter, said Safiya was allegedly advised to apply lizard
faeces and beans by a matron as local treatment in the absence of
prescription drugs.
Safiya,
15, a student of Government Girls Junior Science Secondary School,
Miga, Jigawa State, was unable to sleep owing to the pain from the wound
but she could not be taken to the school authority for immediate
medical attention as the principal was said to have warned the staff
against taking any student’s complaint to her after school hours.
Disturbed
by her condition, the matron in her dormitory introduced her to the
lizard faeces concoction as a so-called traditional medicine. This,
however further worsened the girl’s condition as her forefinger became
swollen.
Despite her
deteriorating condition, two days after, Safiya could not get any
medical attention because the school had no clinic, and the principal
was said to have left for the weekend in Kano.
Safiya
later pleaded with one of her teachers to call her father, Malam Abbas
Ahmed, who then took her to a hospital where it was diagnosed that
infection from the first aid earlier applied had overwhelmed the finger
and it should be amputated.
Narrating
how it all started, Safiya said on the fateful day, she had observed a
voluntary fast and that in the process of cutting onions to prepare a
salad dish, she sustained a knife cut on her left index finger.
When
contacted, the state Commissioner for Education, Rabi Ishaq, said the
ministry had already set up a committee to investigate the matter and
report back for necessary action.
