The Lagos Command of the Nigerian police was reacting to reports that a hospital refused to treat a victim who was shot and wounded by armed robbers.

Hospitals and doctors should henceforth stop rejecting gunshot victims, as such act constitutes a flagrant violation of an existing law, police in Lagos have said.

Police say doctors who do so are criminally liable on account of the provision of the Compulsory Treatment and Care of Victims Of Gunshot Act, 2017.
 
Spokesman of the command SP Chike Oti said the police would henceforth arrest and prosecute any medical practitioner who rejects gunshot victims on the ground of police report.

“The attention of the Nigeria Police, Lagos State Command, has been drawn to a newspaper publication of Monday, May 14, where it was reported that one Engr. Adebayo Akinwunmi, a senior engineer with an Information and Communications Technology company, was shot and wounded by armed robbers in his house at Ofada-Mokoloki, Ogun State and was brought to Reddington hospital, Ikeja, for treatment only to be refused admission on the unlawful and inexcusable grounds that there was no police report,” he said in a statement.

“The command considers the action of the hospital as cruel; perhaps, an indication that the hospital management may be ignorant of the “Compulsory Treatment and Care of Victims Of Gunshot Act, 2017.”