A Nigerian Veteran Actor and filmmaker, Rammy Shitta-Bay, who was sick for one and half years has lamented that the upsurge in the death of Nigerians is a result of lack of funds.
Shitta-Bey revealed this in a video with his junior colleague, Kunle Afod while sharing how he recently battled and survived a stroke.
He said, “I was sick for one and half years but I did not make noise of it. God surrounded me with wonderful and good family and friend home and abroad. I spent millions of Naira in the hospital. While I was sick, the whole of Shitta-Bay’s family supported me. My wife was very supportive. People in America stood by me. They warned me that they must not hear of it on the media.”
Shitta-Bay, the former Lagos State Governor of a breakaway faction of the Association of Theatre Arts Practitioners (ANTP), noted that many deaths would have been prevented if facilities were available to provide healthcare and opportunities for the patients to access medical care and source for the payments of their bills after treatments.
Narrating his prevails during his sickness, the actor revealed that he was living on a drug that cost N850,000 per month, stressing that he tried as much as possible to keep his sickness away from the public.
“I did not allow people to beg for money for me. My family tried for me. I did not attend to some journalists who came here to find out about my sickness. However, some of my close associates like Jide Kosoko, Adebayo Salami popularly known as Oga Bello, Taiwo Hassan known as Ogogo, and Yinka Quadri, among others visited me and they did very well for me. They prayed for me saying that I will not die”, the actor stated.
Shitta-Bay told Afod that the one million naira he sent to him was a saving grace because he received the money when he and his wife were thinking about where to get money to buy his drug that had just finished.
He said, “The day you sent N1m to me, I wanted to buy my drug. My wife and I were considering how to get money to buy it. The drug cost of my drug per month is N850,000. The drug is supposed to be taken thrice a day. I am supposed to take two in the morning, two in the afternoon, and two in the evening. When it was finishing, I resolved to take two in the morning and two in the evening. Many sick people die because of lack of money. If someone has to take three drugs and the person is now taking one and a half, the person will die. If there is a health scheme that allows the hospital to take care of you if you are sick and allow you to pay the debt you incurred during the sickness, many patients will survive their sickness. It was when my drug finished that you called me that you were coming to see me. When I received the credit alert, I was very happy that you sent me N100,000 not knowing that it was N1m. Rather than seeing N1m, I was seeing N1000,000. It was when I showed it to my wife that you sent N100,000 that she said it was not N100,000 but N1m.”
