By Kufre Etuk
I called the toll-free number that evening, informing the medical personnel online that I had lost my sense of smell and taste. The personnel opted to send an ambulance to pick me up, but I rejected the offer on the premise that it would raise dust around my neighbourhood. I decided to pay my way to Ibom Multi-Specialty Hospital for the COVID-19 test. I got there and met a doctor who asked me a few questions. After interrogation, I was detained in a lonely but well-furnished room on the 3rd floor of the building. It was then I realised I had contracted coronavirus known as COVID-19.
I can recall the day I made a video call with my wife and I saw one of my girls packing her shoes, crying to join me at the hospital. The innocent girl begged me to instruct her mother to bring her to stay with me, that was the moment I was broken. I bowed my head in prayer and whispered to God to spare my life for the sake of my family, especially the little girl who never understood what I was going through at that moment.
Days gone and weeks disappeared, and I was fed with drugs. I mean drugs that could shake the hell out of anybody’s life. About two times, I peeped through the 3rd floor of the hospital to see dead bodies being rolled into an ambulance.
One morning, while in my lonely room, I tuned to Channels TV, and the first news I heard was, “… 42-year-old man has died of COVID-19 in Rivers State.” Immediately, I was transfixed and I felt like my breath would stop because of the shock. I quickly turned off the TV and went to bed. My two legs crumbled and my legs were shaking. I saw death staring at me.
I felt like talking to somebody but nobody was with me in the room. The image of medical personnel wearing their ghost-like coverall around me kept reverberating in my mind. Each time I closed my eyes, I would see medical personnel in their white coverall. The news rang a bell in my mind, and I heard a voice telling me, “You may be the next.” It was at that point I called the medical personnel and requested I should be relocated to another room where I could stay with others. Right from that day till this point, my interest in and love for electronic media went off like a pack of papers. My small fine radio set is now a piece of obsolete furniture. I now subscribe to DSTV for my children to watch their favourite programmes while I join them occasionally.
Before then, I was an ardent listener of the news on the radio and a watcher of television. My favourite Network, Africa, on BBC, is now a forgotten issue. Every day, I struggle to watch the least thing like the news or tune to programmes on the radio, yet I have no interest. I have tried all I can to get myself healed from the shock but to no avail. Even when I pay for news, I would rarely watch or listen to it. I always demand the recorded version of the news. I am afraid if I tune in to the radio or television, I may hear another shocking story. I have done a little research to know whether I am the only one affected, and the answer is no.
However, journalists must come to terms with the negative psychological impact they caused innocent members of the public during the coronavirus pandemic. First, we must accept the fact that the pandemic caught us unprepared in all directions. There is no time for refresher courses on how to disseminate information during health crises. Also, because our society believes so much in oddity, we were compelled to feed and satisfy them by dwelling more on negativity and sensationalism than successes recorded during the pandemic. Thus, death tolls were given prominence, and the number of recovered patients was barely mentioned in our headlines. Instead of giving people hope, we instilled in them fear and hopelessness. We killed them with our reports even before doctors pronounced many of them dead.
I am so sorry to say that a good number of people who died would have survived if we, in the media, had played down negativity by assuring them of life. Coronavirus is gone but I am still finding healing for myself. My love for electronic media must be restored.
