…36-yr-old mother accuses doctors of negligence
…Not true, she absconded — Hospital
By Jeff Agbodo
THE family of Idris Afolabi has accused doctors at the National Obstetrics Fistula Centre, NOFIC, Abakiliki, Ebonyi State, of causing the wife to have a stillbirth. He alleged that negligence by doctors and poor care in the hospital resulted in the stillbirth.
Narrating her ordeal, Mrs. Zara Afolabi alleged that she was abandoned by the doctors while she was bleeding profusely. She claimed that when they decided to relocate to another hospital, the hospital’s security personnel prevented them, and beat up her husband’s friend, Ismail Owolabi, who came to assist them with his car.
“We came there in the night, one doctor came and attended to me, while doing that, they pulled him out. But while leaving, he told me to go for a scan, which I did that night. And in the morning around 10:00 am, I asked one nurse whether the doctors would do a ward round because I was bleeding seriously. But one of the nurses replied saying: ‘I am not a doctor.’ So, I started begging for the doctor to attend to me.
“After pleading for a long time, the doctor sluggishly told me to wait for her to come, and when she eventually came, she asked me to go and do another scan. I asked her why, having done one the previous night. She told me that the previous one was for the doctor that attended to me that day. I went and did the second scan and I was still seriously bleeding. The painful part of it is that after doing the second scan, I didn’t see the doctor for over three hours and the bleeding continued. Another doctor later came and said that the scan could not be certified, that I should do another scan, making it the 3rd scan in the same NOFIC hospital. I had no option than to do the 3rd scan. I was still bleeding. I had to call my husband; and when he came, he suggested that I should be taken to another hospital so that I would not bleed to death. He called his friend, Ismail Owolabi to come and help us.
“We packed our things, and none of the staff talked to us. When we moved to the gate, one of the nurses ran and ordered the gate men to close the gate. My husband told them that his friend, Owolabi is staying back and he would be back, that he was rushing me to Alex Ekwueme Federal Teaching Hospital (FETHA 2) that shares fence with them, that he would be back shortly; that he doesn’t want me to bleed to death here.
“Before we knew it, the gate men started shouting and pushing us, the NOFIC hospital wanted me dead, they wanted to kill me. Why would they stop me from going where I would receive emergency treatment? The scan I did showed a miscarriage and the doctors didn’t do anything for me and I was seriously bleeding. I later lost the baby and my God will judge them,” she lamented.
Owolabi who was beaten said: “I gave my car to my friend to take his wife to a nearby hospital. I pleaded with the gate men to allow Afolabi to take his wife who had been bleeding to another hospital, so I would stay back and take care of their bill. As soon as the car moved, the gate men who were more than four started beating me like a common criminal.
They were hitting me with all kinds of objects and at a time, they tied my two legs. They called the police. In fact, it was the police that rescued me that day.
The police equally took me to their clinic where I received treatment. After which I made a statement and police made me the complainant, not them again due to the degree of injuries they inflicted on me”.
When contacted, the Public Relations Officer of the hospital, Rita Nwojiji denied the accusation of negligence. She accused the family of absconding from the hospital without proper discharge and clearance.
“The issue of negligence does not arise. There was no negligence at all on the said patient. She went for an ultrasound and was on admission. She was placed on bed rest because of the threatened abortion. They ran out of the hospital without proper referral to another hospital or proper discharge.
“It is right, especially when somebody came into the hospital and acted abnormally and took away our patient without proper discharge and clearance. It is right for the security men to lock the gates. Have you seen the security man with his own injuries? The man in question was the first to attack our security men and they started fighting. It was a case of two fighting and both got injured”, she claimed.
The post Family blames Ebonyi Fistula Centre over stillbirth appeared first on Vanguard News.
