Alex Ofehe
The family members of a 37-year-old lawyer, Alex Ofehe, who died at the Federal Staff Hospital in Jabi, Abuja after an unsuccessful operation has accused the two federal hospitals of gross negligence that led to the sudden demise of the lawyer.
Late Alex had complications few days after the surgeries, as he suffered severe pains and a bulging stomach to the extent that he started passing blood as urine and stool.
He was taken back into the theatre to clean the wounds of previous surgeries, however, his family members alleged that the hospital repeated the same surgical procedures on his intestines in “suspicious” circumstances.
Meanwhile the hospital had claimed the surgery was successful because it was performed by the three most experienced consultant surgeons in Abuja, including one from the National Hospital.
The need for blood transfusion was called in an effort to resuscitate the patient. Painfully, Alex’s case worsened four hours after the blood transfusion. He was consequently referred to the National Hospital.
Dailypost learnt that the National Hospital rejected the lawyer who had waited two and half hours in the FSH ambulance for admission. He eventually gave up the ghost after losing so much blood.
Consequent to his death, the management of FSH and National Hospital are now trading blames over the lawyer’s death.
Meanwhile the deceased has long been buried in his home town, Oghara-Iyede in Isoko North Local Government Area of Delta State on November 24, but 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 also sent to the Medical Director of National Hospital and the Minister of Health, Prof. Onyewuchi Chukwu, calling for more investigation on the matter.
Ejumejowo wrote, “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.”
While refuting the allegations against them, 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 her, 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.
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.”
The spokesperson for the National Hospital, Dr. Tayo Haastrup, also countered the allegations of negligence against the hospital.
He argued that some hospitals had cultivated the habit of bringing “dead” and worse cases to National Hospital. In order to curtail such occurrences, 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. According to him, “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.”
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