When
37-year-old Alex Ofehe, a lawyer, left home for surgeries at the
Federal Staff Hospital in Jabi, Abuja on October 23, little did he know
that death was lurking around the corner.
A
few days after the surgeries, he suffered severe pains and developed
swellings on the stomach to the extent that he started passing blood as
urine and stool.
Ofehe was taken back into the theatre on October 30 to clean the wounds of previous surgeries.
But
rather than do that, his family members alleged that the hospital
repeated the same surgical procedures on his intestines in a
“suspicious” circumstances.
The
surgery was said to be successful because it was performed by the three
most experienced consultant surgeons in Abuja, including one from the
National Hospital.
But after the surgeries, the doctors at FSH were said to have requested for blood with which to resuscitate the patient.
Ironically,
Ofehe’s case worsened four hours after the blood transfusion. He was
consequently referred to the National Hospital.
PUNCH Metro learnt
that the National Hospital refused to admit the lawyer two and half
hours after he was brought and he eventually died inside the FSH
ambulance that took him there.
The managements of FSH and National Hospital are now trading blames over the lawyer’s death.
Ofehe was buried in his home town, Oghara-Iyede in Isoko North Local Government Area of Delta State on November 24.
The
family, in a letter by their lawyer, Mr. Anthony Ejumejowo, to the
Medical Director of FSH, Dr. C.I. Igwilo, accused the hospital of
negligence.
A
similar letter was sent to the Medical Director of National Hospital
and the Minister of Health, Prof. Onyewuchi Chukwu, calling for
investigation of the incident.
In
the letter to FSH, Ejumejowo said, “Our client strongly suspects that
there was a deliberate attempt to cover up the negligence of the
surgeons and knowing that the deceased had no chance of surviving, sent
the deceased to die outside your hospital deliberately.
“We
hereby demand an explanation and comprehensive report of everything
that transpired between the period that the deceased was admitted and
the period that he died under the care of your hospital.”
The
Medical Director of FSH, Igwilo, in her letter dated November 7
admitted that “the deceased was noticed to have developed some
complications that necessitated a second surgery.”
According
to him, Ofehe suddenly started bleeding from the stomach and was
passing altered blood in his stool and was vomiting profusely on the
evening of the next day after he had been adjudged by clinical and
laboratory parameters to have improved.
Igwilo
said in view of the severity of the bleeding, Ofehe was transfused with
four pints of blood and was on the fifth one when he was moved to the
National Hospital due to the blood loss, massive transfusions he had
received and recurrent attacks of asthma.
She
said, “The patient was eventually referred to the National Hospital,
Abuja with ongoing blood transfusion with another extra pint of blood
taken along in the hospital ambulance.
“FSH
did all that was reasonable and professionally possible within our
disposal. One of the surgeons even had to donate his own blood during
resuscitation. There was no negligence on our part; he was stabilised
and referred to the National Hospital where his chances of survival
would have been better.”
However, the spokesperson for the National Hospital, Dr. Tayo Haastrup, told PUNCH Metro that most of the allegations of negligence against the hospital were not true.
He
said some hospitals had cultivated the habit of bringing “dead”
patients to National Hospital, adding that it was only when cases of
some patients had become too bad that they were brought to the NH.
To
check the trend, Haastrup said the management had now decided that
before patients would be admitted, comprehensive checks would be carried
out to ascertain whether they were brought in alive and their chances
of survival.
He
said, “I know that there is no way we will carry out a surgery without a
consent form (to be filled by the patient or a family member). Let me
find out the details; but the problem with National Hospital is that
when medical cases become bad outside, they will rush them to National
Hospital.
“Patients
will be rushed from other hospitals to us when their cases have become
so bad. We will do our best but when the patients eventually die, they
will attribute the blame to National Hospital calling it negligence.
“I
have seen cases where we saved lives. But some cases are so bad before
they are referred to National Hospital. Even some of the patients would
have been dead before they bring them to National Hospital us. Some of
the hospitals will put oxygen on dead patients and rush them down here.”
Punch Nigeria
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