About 10 days ago, the media in Nigeria was thrown into mourning when the news broke of the death of Danladi Ndayebo, a former chief press secretary and information commissioner in Niger State, from complications arising from an accident on Minna road.
Ndayebo was travelling alongside an aide to the Senate President, Mohammed Isa, who also passed on a few days later.
According to an account by Usman Ndayebo, brother of the late Danladi, his brother could have been alive if he got the medical care he deserved and on time too, even as he blamed health workers at the IBB Specialist Hospital, Minna, of negligence of duty.
The younger Ndayebo was quoted in media reports to have said the ex-commissioner arrived the hospital at about 9:30pm talking normally, and complained of slight pain on his chest but was not attended to, with no scan or x-ray carried out to establish the cause of the chest pain all through the night up until the next morning.
“From the time they were brought to the hospital, there were no staff to operate the scan machine or the x-ray machine to carry out tests on him.
“There is a scanner and an x-ray machine in the hospital but the staff were not on ground to operate the machines.”
Continuing, he stated that by morning, the late Ndayebo had still not been attended to and it took the intervention of a former Secretary to the Niger State Government, Kuta Yahaya, before the staff of the hospital started to attend to him but unfortunately, he died as efforts were being made to transfer him to the general hospital.
The case of Ndayebo is one out of several lives lost as a result of alleged negligence by health workers.
In 2020, three medical doctors at the Federal Medical Centre, Makurdi, Benue State, as well as the hospital were dragged before the Federal High Court, Makurdi, for allegedly causing the untimely death of late Mrs Sabina Uyeh who until her death was also a staff of the hospital.
The deceased’s husband had alleged that an operation carried out on his wife by the medical doctors left her with a perforated stomach, as revealed by a scan but rejected by one of the doctors, a situation which left her in pains for three months, causing her health to deteriorate and leading to her death.
A couple and employees of Shell, Emeka and Stella Okoli, in 2021, filed a suit of medical negligence against doctors working in Shell Hospital, Port Harcourt, accusing them of negligently killing their son during an appendectomy operation. The couple alleged that the child, who happened to be their only son, suffered brain damage and remained incapacitated and confined to a wheelchair, following the alleged negligent surgical procedure by the Shell hospital and its doctors.
Last year, the family of Peju Ugboma, a Lagos-based chef, accused a private hospital, Premier Specialist Medical Centre, Victoria Island, of negligence leading to the untimely death of their daughter.
According to reports, the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, had carried out an independent autopsy on Peju which revealed that she suffered internal bleeding, with about two litres of blood in her abdomen and pelvic area, after an elective fibroid surgery carried out by the private hospital.
Recently, the family of one Mrs Janet Nwaosu accused the management of the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu, of causing her death. They alleged that a doctor in the hospital gave Janet an injection that aggravated her medical condition and led to her death.
Medical negligence can occur from a misdiagnosis, inappropriately delayed diagnosis, surgical mistakes among others.
Medical misdiagnosis is quite prevalent in Nigeria with one study suggesting that about 42 per cent of women and 54 per cent of men who tested negative for malaria still used malaria medication.
Misdiagnosis often happens when the doctors or health practitioners who test patients are unfamiliar with the disease and lack the infrastructure to conduct thorough tests.
Poor training, work load, poor and non-functioning equipment for diagnosis have also been identified as being responsible for deaths resulting from negligence.
If you happen to speak to Nigerians who visit our hospitals to seek medical care, you’ll be regaled with stories of near death experiences in the hands of health workers as a result of wrong diagnosis or negligent conduct. People have lost body parts in surgical procedures that were later found to not have been necessary while others were treated for ailments they didn’t have.
While it is true that a life lost cannot be regained, cases of alleged negligence by medical practitioners need to be taken seriously and thoroughly investigated.
The medical and dental council of Nigeria has a tribunal through which doctors reported of negligent conduct are held to account when found guilty. Punishment for such doctors range from suspension to ban on practice but whether the sanctions are enough to make them more careful in the discharge of their professional duties is debatable as families continue to lose their loved ones and thrown into mourning.
In the case of Ndayebo, the Niger State government has constituted a committee to establish the circumstances leading to his death, to ascertain whether or not medical personnel and operational deficiencies at the IBB Specialist Hospital, Minna, contributed to his death.
While we look forward to the findings of the committee, which will hopefully be made public, we pray that God forgives Ndayebo and Isa their sins and grant their souls eternal rest.
