Fact Check: Is Akpabio’s ‘Sugar and Water’  Prescription a Medical Procedure to Resuscitate a Patient?

Fact Check: Is Akpabio’s ‘Sugar and Water’  Prescription a Medical Procedure to Resuscitate a Patient?

Claims: When the Ministerial nominee for Kaduna State suddenly collapsed during a screening at the Senate chambers, Senate President Godswill Akpabio suggested that he should be served ‘sugar and water’ to resuscitate him. 

Full Text: There was an uproar on Wednesday 4th October, 2023 in the Senate chambers when a Ministerial nominee, Abbas Balarabe from Kaduna State, collapsed while explaining his profile at the Senate.

Abbas Balarabe who replaced Nasir El-Rufai from Kaduna State suddenly collapsed during his screening.

The video which has now gone viral on social media space and other mainstream media caught the attention of the public as the Senate President called for “water and sugar”, to be administered on the slumped ministerial nominee. 

During the screening process, Kaduna South senator Sunday Katung was interrupted when Senate President Godswill Akpabio shouted, “Bring water! water! water! and sugar, sugar! sugar! sugar!….”

The Senate President was heard repeatedly shouting “Water! water! give him Water And Sugar” during a live broadcast of the Senate’s ministerial screening section.

Question: Does the emergency first aid recommendation of the Senate President have any medical backing and is it appropriate in a real time emergency situation? Let’s verify.

Verification: In order to ascertain if the recommendation of the Senate President has any medical evidence, PRNigeria fact-check team used specific terms for online keywords search which revealed that other media platforms had reported the incident with direct reference to the Senate President’s first aid recommendations.

Also the guardian newspaper reported the same incident pointing to the Senate President’s “water and sugar” first aid recommendations.

The recommendation by the Senate President has been generating public reactions. One of such reactions is from a Medical and Health Consultant who goes by the X handle @Nonso1612 quipped, “Water and Sugar for sudden collapse? This is incredible!”

Another X user by the handle @lookwhoIbecame tweeted “Oya tell us who taught you this magic because medical practitioners don’t recognize it…”.

However, of particular interest is the follow up report by IdomaVoice, an online media on the Senate President’s recommendation titled; “Can water and sugar revive someone who fainted”? This report listed cases where his recommendation might apply, but concluded that it’s not a guaranteed solution in an emergency situation.

Further findings led to a brief by Mayo Clinic which revealed what ought to be done as first aid in an emergency situation like that of Abbas Balarabe, which is called Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), a lifesaving technique that’s useful in many emergencies in which someone’s breathing or heartbeat has stopped. For example, when someone has a heart attack or nearly drowns. 

The American Heart Association recommends starting CPR with hard and fast chest compressions.

The above brief didn’t mention “water and sugar” as first aid in an emergency situation.

Additionally, Dr Ignatius Hope, a Clinical and Safety Director at Adeyanju Hospital & Maternity, Agbara, Ogun State in an interview with PRNigeria explained that, “It depends on the patient’s cause of fainting. If the patient has Low Sugar then he/she needs Sugar as part of the resuscitation measures, and if the patient has Low Blood Pressure, then he/She needs Salt solution as part of the resuscitation measures”.

When he was further asked if a non professional could recommend water and sugar, he said; “except if the non professional has some first aid experience and can check the Victim’s Sugar Level with Acu Check or Blood Pressure with Digital Blood Pressure Machine. In this case, the Senate President has no such experience to suggest or recommend such measures on a live broadcast.”

The Dr. Hope added that “a non-professional can cause more harm than good in cases of emergency, evidence of ability to calm the situation with results is the basic thing needed to rescue life…hence, it’s not a medically guaranteed recommendation”, he concluded.

Also, PRNigeria fact-check findings led to some medical practitioners and experts advice which state that it is dangerous for a public official to recommend a potentially harmful course of action without first aid knowledge or consulting with medical professionals first as people might trust their words without realizing the potential harm that could come from giving “water and sugar” to someone who has fainted.

They equally recommended how public officials ought to react during emergency situations like the one seen in this video of former President of the United States, Barack Obama, calling for a Doctor to attend to an individual who was not feeling well at a press briefing. 

Conclusion: from the foregoing, PRNigeria findings reveals that using water and sugar as a resuscitation technique for unconscious persons who suddenly slumped has no concrete backing in medical science. 

PRNigeria therefore concludes that the public “water and sugar” emergency first aid recommendations by the Senate President is MISLEADING. 

By PRNigeria