‘Why Benin chiefs don’t eat with their beads on’
Prof. Osato Giwa-Osage is the CEO of OMNI Medical Centre, an advanced fertility clinic based in Lagos.The septuagenarian obsterician/gynaecologist was in a lighter mood on the fateful evening this reporter encountered him. He was dressed in a safari with his necks adorned with beads. Shortly before close of work, the professor made out time from his tight schedule to speak with Effects.
How come many Osagies are medical doctors?
I think you hear the name often.The first Osagie who was as medical doctor was Prof. Bello Osagie. He died about 12 years ago. He was a renowned gynaecologist and consulted for some heads of states in Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and other neighbouring countries. Their wives came down to Lagos to see him. He also became the provost of the medical school, University of Benin. He had been chief consultant Island Maternity before he moved to Benin. He was the first Nigerian consultant gynecologist at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, (LUTH) in the early years of the institution.
Are you related?
He was my father’s first cousin and my uncle.
Was he the one who inspired you to study medicine?
Ooh.. My father had some friends like Dr. George Carey, who was his friend at kings college, Dr. GT Ekpeme of Calabar who was also my fathers’ classmate. These two were medical doctors. They were senior to Dr Bello Osagie, so I grew up knowing them. My uncle returned from Canada and England as a doctor as well. Those influenced me. Before I got to form 3 at Kings College, I knew that I would be a medical doctor. I just like the idea that somebody will be crying this minute, a doctor go to that person, find out what it is, apply something, come back the next day and the person is walking around. Its like magic. That is important for a young person. I used to see them in their white coat and stethoscope and they will be flinging it. Young people get attracted to people in uniforms. They see a captain in uniform, they want to be a soldier, you see a doctor in action you want to be a doctor.
What makes you happy?
Being able to solve problems. I deliver babies; look after pregnant women and take care of issues like infertility, fibroid, cancer and so on. Looking after these women and producing positive results are more satisfying than making 100 million naira. In Nigeria, while you are busy looking after these women including the wives of the governors, senators and so on, they are busy sharing lands, they don’t remember you. I was in this Lagos, when people were sharing the whole of Victoria Island and Oniru Estate, I didn’t get one. That wouldn’t happen in Nigeria of 50 years ago. The Perm Sec would have told them to give me the form to fill. Sometimes, when you hear that doctors are rude or inhuman to some patients, it’s their reactions to what they had gone through. Nobody does a doctor a favour anymore. Nobody.
In your years as a gynecologist, when was your most memorable moment?
My uncle, Prof T. Bello Osagie, now deceased was a Chief Consultant at the Lagos Island Maternity. First, I went to LUTH, Idi-Araba but the workers were on strike. He told me to come over to Island Maternity and I went there. On my first day in the labour ward, I delivered 15 babies but I was required to deliver 20 babies in one month. In one day, I delivered 15 babies. I was the only medical student around
At the time, Lagos State had its own medical school but no medical student was going to Island maternity. They were so happy to have an extra hand The matrons were calling me, come and take delivery, and they assisted me. In two days, I collected all the babies I needed for one month, yet I had more than 20 days remaining in the month. I told them I would do all the stitches for them. I’m talking of Island Maternity of the early 70s. At that time, the consultants and senior registrars were very experienced. The hospital was a very good place to go for training. They had many personnel from Eastern Europe; not the Eastern Europe of today where their standards are just like Western Europe. In those days people used to look down on Eastern Europe-trained doctors. Many of them went without the basic requirement to gain admission into Ibadan or Lagos or English universities. That was over 40 years ago. But today, Nigerian students are travelling to Ukraine and they come out, properly trained.
If you put to bed at that time and you had a tear, you could be lying down there for two days and nobody would stitch you. You could even leave the hospital without being stitched because the registrar would be busy with cesarean operations, ruptured sutures’, etc, They didn’t have the time to stitch tears. And there was I, almost trained in England, seeking experience, So, I was so happy stitching Nigerian women with tears at Island Maternity. One day I stitched up to 10 women. I remember the incident very clearly.
Overseas, there were very few of us who read Medicine in top institutions. I was trained at Cambridge University and in Kings College Hospital. During my years at Kings College hospital, there were only two blacks out of about 70 students. I was at Cambridge from 1966 to 1969 and Kings College, 1969-72.
After that, I became a lecturer there in 1976 before I returned to Nigeria in 1978. I was employed in LUTH and I have been in LUTH all through my career in Nigeria. Some of the lecturers wondered how I was able to make it into Kings College in England. Some of them had not been to Africa and they perceived Africa as a dark, primitive continent.They wondered what a dark African student like me was doing there? Their thinking was, the space would have been given to an English student. When I became a clinical student at Kings Hospital, we went for the rounds. One man took us to an empty ward where about seven of us were attached to a consultant.
You could imagine the amount of supervision you would receive unlike Africa where 20 students could be attached to one consultant. Of course, I was the only black student in our group but I had this friend who was a British conservative supporter at that time. His brother was either the home secretary or attorney general. He looked at me; he asked me where I came from and I told him I was from Nigeria. He then queried why their government was spending so much money to educate me in the UK rather than spending the money on its citizens.
I told him, I was sorry, but he was asking the wrong person. I told him that my father was the one paying my tuition there that I was not on UK scholarship. “That means you are from one of those rich Nigerian families?” You could see how he changed thereafter? He became my very good friend to the extent that when I qualified as a doctor, I didn’t understand the UK immigration laws. I came home on holidays forgetting that I was no longer a student. I was going to return to the UK as a doctor and I had to go to the British Embassy. On getting there, I was given a long appointment. I was supposed to start work in the first week in September in that year; but they weren’t going to see me till end of September. I had to phone my friend that I was going to work for him at the hospital as a house officer. I told him I had not been issued a Visa. He said, “what nonsense. I will talk to my brother about that.” His brother was the home secretary. Of course, he talked to his brother about it and the British High Commission Visa section opened on a Saturday to issue me Visa to travel back to England. Their Minister in England told the officials at the Visa section, “this chap is supposed to work for my brother at Kings College Hospital, he only came home on holiday, can you please give him a Visa.” It shows you how things used to be organized then. If it’s now, unless your father is the president or vice president or foreign minister, they would not listen to you. The embassy opened on a Saturday to issue me Visa. I didn’t know anybody; I was only working for a consultant whose brother was the home secretary. I remember that incident very well.
Is this how you dress everyday with beads round your neck?
These are beads worn by Benin chiefs. When you wear beads round your neck, you cannot eat; you are not allowed to eat food. You can drink, have snacks but you cannot eat proper food. If you must eat, you must take them off, eat and put them on again. I had been at a wedding of one of Chief Igbinedion’s children at Eko hotel. They took all the chiefs into separate room for about one hour. They gave us food and we ate as we loved and came back to join the party. Some people wear it because the king, at the time wanted to honour them for what they had done for their communities.
Is it something you wear everyday?
No. I wear it today because I was in Benin this weekend. Yesterday, I entertained the chiefs of my line in my house. It was my turn to entertain them. I came to Lagos from Benin this morning by air, I wore the beads. So, I had my beads on. I wore it like this to LUTH and they were all glaring at me.
How do you make out time to relax?
When I go home. I have something to eat and most probably go to Ikoyi club to drink cold beer, listen to music and eat Suya.