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Parents of 13-month old Nicole Adesanya
have called on the Lagos State Government to take responsibility for the
alleged negligence of one of its doctors.
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Mr. and Mrs. Biyi Adesanya are far
from being happy right now. They are displeased with the helpless
condition of their 13-month old daughter.
The couple, who spoke with our
correspondent at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja in
Lagos on Saturday, said their daughter, Nicole cannot
sit, crawl, stand
or talk, a problem which doctors have attributed to certain conditions
that surrounded her birth.
Adesanya alleged that medical
complications that his wife and baby suffered in the course of delivery
at the Lagos Island Maternity Hospital on the 22nd of June 22, 2011 led
to the pitiable condition of his daughter.
According to him, on a fateful
Wednesday, his wife fell in labour and was immediately rushed to the
Somolu General Hospital, where she registered as a staff member on the
state government payroll, but on getting to the hospital, the doctor on
duty said his wife would undergo an emergency Caesarean section to
deliver the baby.
Adesanya said, “They said the doctor
that could have performed the surgery was not available and that we
should go to Island Maternity Hospital for an emergency operation which
must be performed that day because of the severe contractions .”
In a petition letter obtained by our
correspondent, Adesanya alleged that the doctor on duty that day, Dr.
Damilola Adeyemo, rejected his wife in an emergency situation and also
refused to honour the referral letter.
“After one hour, it became obvious they
would not attend to her. I called a doctor that I knew at Lagos
University Teaching Hospital and he said we should bring her but when I
asked her (Adeyemo)for the referral letter that we were to present at
LUTH and the one they gave us at Somolu, she bluntly refused to give it
to us,’’ he said.
He added that the doctor reluctantly
admitted his wife later in the evening on the grounds that she was a
member of staff of the state government.
“She sent us out of the ward and was
asking my wife who was in labour and experiencing severe contractions
to give me drug prescriptions outside the ward on several occasions.
“I heard her discussing with another
consultant, who told her to sedate my wife. She told her colleague that
she had already sent me to buy the injections. At this point I
confronted her right there but she slammed the door on me and sent me to
get another set of drugs if I wanted the operation to take place that
night which I obliged.”
However, Adesanya said when he came back
with the drug supplies, his wife had been sedated and the operation
that he had been reassured would be done did not take place that night.
He said his wife was later placed on
oxygen the following day, because the baby was no longer breathing well
and the mother needed the air-support to keep the baby alive.
“She (Adeyemo) still insisted that the
CS could not be done on the next day(Thursday) till the third day
(Friday).At this point I called Somolu again and they asked us to
bring her back immediately for the operation.
“ There was no ambulance for us to
transport her back to Somolu. I hired a taxi to Somolu and the general
hospital operated on my wife 35 hours after we had stayed at the
Island maternity hospital.”
Funmilola, the mother, said she later had the baby through an operation at the Somolu General Hospital the following night.
However, there was no sign or symptom to show that something was amiss with her baby’s health till three months after.
Funmilola said, “She started
convulsing and falling into seizures every month. We thought it was
epilepsy. She could not sit ,crawl, talk or walk and was not responding
to sounds. We took her to Ikorodu General Hospital and Massy Children’s
Hospital, but no improvement. But doctors said it was not epilepsy.”
According to medical report made
available to our correspondent, Nicole had suffered severe asphyxia at
birth, a condition which arises due to many reasons including when a
baby does not get enough oxygen before, during, or just after birth.
It also stated that the continuous
seizures and convulsion were due to this defect and had degenerated to
cerebral palsy, a condition that poses bladder, congenital, visual,
mental and locomotive challenges among others in babies.
Adesanya, a software engineer, in his
petition letter which copies were sent to the Ministry of Health,
Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria and the hospital, has called on
the state government to take responsibility for the treatment of his
daughter’s condition which he alleged was due to unprofessional conducts
of the doctors that attended to his wife during the delivery.
He said, “Every month, she has seizures
at least four times and we spend almost N40,000 on drugs and other
medical tests. My wife cries everyday and night due to the agony our
innocent daughter is passing through. Our pain cannot be quantified. We
have invested all our peace, money and time on her since the problem
started.
“I cannot concentrate at work and my
wife almost lost her job. I want the authorities at Island Maternity
hospital to not only look into the matter but also correct the damage as
soon as possible.”
In a reaction to this petition August
1, the Health Service Commission set up a panel of enquiry which had
all concerned parties in attendance including the accused doctor, the
Adesanyas, the hospital and their legal teams.
The Legal Counsel to the Adesanyas, Mr.
Don Akaegbu, in an interview, said though the panel had agreed to take
Nicole for medical examination within the next 14 days after the
sitting, four weeks after, it had yet to see any definite step in that
direction.
When contacted, the accused doctor, Dr.
Damilola Adeyemo, declined to comment on the matter. She noted that the
case was already before the investigative panel.
Also, the Chairman of the panel, Dr.
Atinuke Onayiga, said she could not comment on the delay, as the legal
team had taken up the matter.
She rather referred our correspondent to the Permanent Secretary in the ministry.
Onayiga said, “Our legal team is
communicating with all the parties involved and we have submitted all
our recommendations to the appropriate authorities.”
Also, the Counsel to the Health Service
Commission, Mr. Bamidele, added that the panel was in touch with the
legal team of the Adesanyas.
Denying this position, Adesanya said
they had yet to hear from the panel after it met and charged the state
government not to pay lip service to its commitment to investigating
the matter.
He said, “They have not called us back
since that day. We are the one trying to get in touch with them. They
keep saying we should not go to court but they have not even examined
our daughter four weeks after they said they would.
“If no action is taken urgently, we
will sue. We have contacted a hospital abroad and they say she needs to
commence treatment immediately as there is no cure but it can be
managed.
“This fight is not just for Nicole. Many
Nigerian children are living with mental and physical disabilities that
were caused by unprofessionalism of some health workers. Our future is
our children and if all children continue to suffer ailments due to
unethical and unprofessional misconduct, then where lies the future?”
-Punch
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