Monrovia – A distraught father whose daughter was allegedly raped by a dietician at Liberia’s premiere medical facility, the John F. Kennedy Medical Center is accusing administrators of the hospital of trying cover-up the alleged assault on his daughter.
“When I went upstairs, I met the patient that was allegedly reported discharged in room 307 instead of room 303 where she was with my daughter. Why did they remove her from the ward? Is it because she was still talking what she saw?
“But my conscience is still not serving me right, for speaking to that patient, because I see an innocent life is about to be taken away soon.”
“The patient called Mariama who only said what she saw, is suffering for it. Because just Yesterday I asked her in front of the doctors, and she told me my daughter was raped but today she is no longer able to speak – Father of alleged JFK Hospital rape victim
Speaking exclusively to FrontPageAfrica Monday, the father whose name is being withheld to protect the privacy of his daughter took administrators to task for deliberately altering a report he describes as a fairy tale in a bid to protect what happened to his daughter.
The hospital has been hit with a series of negative reports of late, alleging malpractices, including some which has resulted to the death of patients.
The latest allegation of rape reportedly committed by an employee of the hospital comes at a time the hospital is still struggling to defend the barrage of revelations made by its former Public Relations Person Daylue Goah who revealed that doctors and other medical staff at the hospital do not show sympathy for patients as some patients are abandoned and allowed to die in pain.
JFK reacted to the reports by disclosing that the facility is up to the task of providing for the sick in the country and has a team of professionals that are working hard to provide medical services to the Liberian people.
But less than a month later, the hospital has found itself back in the think of more damaging allegations. with another embarrassing incident with the alleged rape of a 23-year-old girl whose hospital record recorded as being 26 year-old.
Tearful father narrates
The father of the alleged victim in a tearful interview with FrontPageAfrica Monday vowed that he will fight to the end to get justice for what he is terming as trauma against his daughter and entire family.
He explained that on May 9, 2016, he took his daughter to the hospital and she has been there for about a month.
She has not been able to leave her bedside until last Friday when she managed to walk around in her hospital room for the first time, having the hope that recovery was in sight before the alleged incident took place.
The father recalled: “That Friday evening, by 8:00 pm as I understood from their own report this fellow came with food and served her, normally this is the normal routine. “
“He came back that time and delivered the food but just within split time he came in the hall again.”
“When he came in, there were four patients in the ward, two were unconscious, my daughter was conscious but has lost her speech.”
“When this guy came in, he shut the light off in that particular ward, he went to my daughter’s bed and begun to finger her according to what I was told.”
“So, the little girl started fighting and trying to scream but she lost speech. So the patient that was stable in the room started screaming, nurses, your come ooh, the man raping the people daughter”, the father explained.
The father continued: “When the nurses came for the first time and asked him, he said nothing. They told him you are not supposed to be here by this time, it will be better you leave this place. So he pretended like he was leaving according to what they told me.”
“Barely 20 to 30 minutes later, he came back again and he checked on all the other beds to see whether all the other patients were awake. The lady who was conscious pretended like she was asleep.”
” She closed her eyes, when he realized that again, he went and shut the light and went to the girl for the second time. When he went there, the little girl started screaming, fighting to get her voice.
Third attempt
According to the father of the alleged victim the other patients in the room with his daughter screamed for help until nurses came again to find out what was unfolding.
“The other patients started screaming, the man has come back again, he has come to rape the people daughter, nurses your come ooh. They came and met him, this time around when they asked him what he was doing there, he became speechless.”
“Other patients from the adjacent ward came out and saw him. Another little boy there who name I do not want to call saw him putting up his zip, and the little boy said ooh, you go f*** the people daughter”.
The father added that the dietician again attempted that he had gone away and still went back to his daughter’s room for the third time.
Said the father: “He returned to my daughter room for the third time and shut out the light to rape my daughter again.”
” This time he was caught in the room sitting on my daughter bed but the lady that was conscious in the room told me he was over my daughter on the bed and my daughter told me that through signs. When I wrote on a piece of paper to ask my daughter, tell me this man that came, did he f*** you. My daughter told me,” yes he f*** me”.
The father’s explanation has been corroborated by a copy of the incident report of the night in question obtained exclusively by FrontPageAfrica.
The incident report indicates that the nurse on duty saw the dietitian, Emmet Rogers wandering on the medical ward and asked him why he was roaming around.
The dietitian, according to the report, told the nurse that he was performing his rounds and picked up the remaining dishes.
The nurse mentioned that she was preparing the patient’s prescription medication and in the process heard screaming from the room 303 B.
On Monday investigators sought to get the patient to talk but she reportedly told them she was feeling cold and not too well thus unable to explain what happened when the dietitian shut the door and cut the lights off.
FrontPageAfrica has gathered that Solicitor General Betty Lamin Blamo, hospital administrators and the victim’s father met Monday in a bid to find common ground on the matter.
The father, whose name is being withheld to protect his daughter’s privacy told FrontPageAfrica Monday that he did not trust the report given him Monday by the hospital.
Not impressed by dismissal
The father lamented to FrontPageAfrica Monday that upon seen his daughter with tears running down her eyes, he started walking away but his daughter held his hands, and did not to let him go.
The father told FPA he was told by authorities at the JFK that they have dismissed the accused and that he has been arrested by the Liberian National Police but he says, such actions are not sufficient to heal the wound.
“What do I stand to benefit if you have dismissed him and sent him to the police. I brought my daughter to JFK Hospital to be cured and healed, under the watchful eyes of JFK my daughter is being raped by one of their trained professional staff.”
” You telling me he has been disrobed and sent to jail, is that what I want to hear. The trauma they have put my family in. Anytime my family see JFK they see it as a rape camp”, he maintained.
He says the JFK Hospital has added insult to injury and he wants President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to behave like a mother and take action against JFK officials.
“Insult has been added to injury, so I expect the President to behave as a mother. Immediately they brought the report. I said I was not going to accept the report because it was a fairy tale.”
“I met with the lady who said she is the solicitor general of Liberia, and she said she wants us to help her in the case because this case was a special case and she had never come on the field before, so she asked me to tell my daughter to write”, the aggrieved father continued.
Possible witness in danger
While the police are said to be investigating the matter, the father has also disclosed that the conscious patient who was in the same room with his daughter has been relocated to another ward by nurses at the JFK Hospital , something he says appears like an apparent attempt to temper with the eyewitness.
Added the Father: “When I went upstairs, I met the patient that was allegedly reported discharged in room 307 instead of room 303 where she was with my daughter.
Why did they remove her from the ward? Is it because she was still talking what she saw?
But my conscience is still not serving me right, for speaking to that patient, because I see an innocent life is about to be taken away soon.
The patient called Mariama who only said what she saw, is suffering for it. Because just Yesterday I asked her in front of the doctors, and she told me my daughter was raped but today she is no longer able to speak.
The father says he fears the patient’s life is at risk because JFK authorities might want her dead so that she will be unable to further explain what happened to his daughter.
“She is now in room 307, I fear for her life more than the life of my daughter, because if my daughter dies, JFK kills her and if she lives, JFK heals her, but that patient is not known.
She is not able to talk when I talk to her, because she only threw sign. She is suffering for what she saw. The mother of the perpetrator and a nurse treated that patient this morning and she can no longer talk”, the father alleged.
The father is alleging that authorities at the JFK are doing everything possible to destroy evidence, as it relates to the raping of his daughter.
Rape is serious offence in Liberia as in 2006, Liberia unveiled an act to amend the New Penal Code Chapter 14 Sections 14.70 and 14.71 which was approved by the National Assembly with a wave of new definition of rape.
Under the new law Intentional penetration (however slight) of a penis into the vagina, anus, mouth, or any opening of another person, without that person’s consent is considered rape.
The law also states that if a victim was detained at the time of the act or was asleep or otherwise unconscious at the time of the act it is also considered rape.
“Due to a physical disability, the victim was not able to communicate to the perpetrator whether she consented at the time of the act. The victim was administered or forced to take a substance that could have caused her to be stupefied or overpowered at the time of the act.”
JFK speaks after 72 hours
With such grave incident believed to have taken place with some nurses at the hospital noticing the incident, the hospital took nearly 72 hours before coming out with a rather lame statement to select media stating that the accused dietitian had been turned over to the Liberia National Police and dismissed from his position.
In the statement, the JFK fell short of explaining what actually took place in Room 303 B after the accused reportedly shut the door the patient was in, and cut the lights off.
FrontPageAfrica has also been informed that a doctor who was on duty on Friday night and was asked to check the girl to see whether she was raped refused, telling nurses that it was not in his curriculum and he was only a consultant.
Incidences of rape is widespread in Liberia despite the country inaugurating its first woman head of state who appointed an array of women to help her usher in a new era and end impunity against violence against women, particularly rape.
Liberia has had women in prominent positions of power including Justice, Gender, Education, Labor, sports and in the national legislatures but crimes against women go with impunity.
Several recent reports have reported that women are experiencing various forms of sexual violence, including rape.
A 2014 report by the Ministry of Gender and Development documented a total of 554 rape cases in the country.
Montserrado County accounts for 428 cases, while the other 14 counties account for 126 cases during the period under review.
At least 512 of the cases were perpetrated against children between the ages 0-17 years, while 42 were against persons over 18 years.
The report noted that 80 percent of rape survivors did not receive medical treatment from July to September due to the upsurge in the Ebola virus, while 20 percent were cared for mostly in Montserrado County.
Mae Azango, [email protected] &Tetee Gebro, Contributor