EDITORIAL: Medical Malpractice: Stemming the tide of dysfunction in our hospitals

Several strange deaths in our public and private health facilities in the last two months, have renewed concerns about the quality of healthcare delivery in Nigeria. This scourge has bedevilled the country for too long. The healthcare system, which primarily compromises the recovery and well-being of patients, requires the urgent intervention of regulatory authorities.

What brought this to the front burner of public concern, not too long ago, were the deaths of twin babies – Testimony and Timothy – on 25 December, a day after their parents had taken them to a Lagos-based Primary Health Centre for a routine vaccination. And then the incident involving Nkanu, a 21-month-old, and one of the twin sons of prominent Nigerian author, Chimamanda Adichie, followed on 6 January, also in Lagos, after undergoing a medical procedure at Euracare Hospital.

In Kano State, Aishatu Umar, a mother of five, passed away on 11 January, due to the carelessness of a team of specialist medical doctors that forgot a pair of scissors in her womb, after a surgery to remove a cyst in her kidney on 16 September at Abubakar Urology Centre. For three months, she experienced endless abdominal pains. The necessary diagnoses could not be carried out to ascertain the cause of her trauma. However, a corrective surgery at another hospital, where she was properly diagnosed, ended fatally.

In a heart-wrenching TikTok video, Samuel Alozie, father of the late twins, showed their bodies in body bags, preparatory to burial, and narrated how they had suddenly died. This went viral, sparking public incredulity and outrage. Mr Alozie solicited the help of human rights lawyers to enable him to get justice for his twins. He alleged that either the vaccine given was fake, expired or inappropriately administered.

“My twins, my nine-month-old children; they have killed them. You can’t tell me that my children who were not sick, who were strong and sound…are dead,” Mr Alozie cried. He does not trust the credibility of a sole post-mortem by the government. Yet, one wonders what the haste was in burying the twins so quickly. It is equally curious that the nurse at the centre of this tragedy concluded that the twins may have died from food poisoning, when she was alerted, at a time when no autopsy had been carried out.

In the case of Nkanu, his mother, Chimamanda Adichie, alleges that the hospital gave him excessive Propofol as a sedative in a medical procedure, prior to an emergency flight to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, USA, and that he was never properly monitored, which exposed him to seizure and cardiac arrest, culminating in his death. The hospital debunked the charge of negligence. In a statement, it said its staff “provided care in line with established clinical protocols and internationally accepted medical standards.”

In pain, Ms Adichie has vowed that her son would be the last child to die in such circumstances in that hospital. She is readying a legal challenge, just as the Lagos State Government has ordered an investigation into the case, as well as that of Alozie’s twin boys.

The ongoing investigation should be interested in Chimamanda’s revelation that two children had reportedly died in earlier cases of Propofol overdosing by the same anesthesiologist. Only an insider could have opened this Pandora’s Box for her. “Why did Euracare allow him to keep working?” She thundered.

In Kano, the State Hospitals Management Board has suspended the three doctors involved in Aisha’s tragedy from service, and referred the matter to the Medical Ethics Committee for investigation and action. The case is straightforward, and as a result, the enquiry should not last long. In jurisdictions such as the US and countries in Europe, the case would warrant the withdrawal of the licences of the affected doctors.

There is also the case of Joshua Afolayan’s kidney transplant case at the Ekiti State Teaching Hospital, which is unsettling due to the government’s declaration that it was a case of “surgical complications” and not organ harvesting, as was rumoured. But the doctor with the primary responsibility for the surgery has been dismissed from service. With that awry surgery, the state will bear the cost of a new kidney transplant for Mr Afolayan and two years of post-surgery expenses, as Oyebanji Filani, the health commissioner, disclosed.

Despite the likelihood of a high number of these cases across the country, according to anecdotal and other presently unverified sources, a few of them eventually become public, or lead to legal action, as Ms Adichie has indicated. We encourage more formal reporting of and legal responses to these absurdities.

These questionable and tragic episodes, as scary and avoidable as they are, feed the penchant for medical tourism to the US, UK, India and other countries by Nigerians who can afford it. A study in 2023 revealed this type of tourism gulped between $1.5 billion and $2 billion.

Embarrassing medical carelessness, such as that in question, should be transparently investigated for the sake of accountability, and sanctions adequately imposed on errant personnel in order to restore public confidence in our healthcare system. Otherwise, Nigerians would continue to be victims of these preventable deaths in the hands of unaccountable, ill-trained doctors and nurses, and other paramedics.

While the difficulties of proper medical practice in the country include the poor service conditions, involving issues of the poor remuneration of these professionals, and insufficient equipment and materials, worsened by the general deterioration of the care ecosystem. Yet, issues of medical malpractice need to be taken very seriously to stem the tide of unfortunate deaths and irreversible debilities.

READ ALSO: How singer Ifunanya Nwagene died – Abuja hospital

As mentioned, it is trite that Nigerian hospitals are ill-equipped; ailments are often misdiagnosed, and fake drugs undermine healthcare delivery. Currently, the Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU) is on strike, whilst the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD), a few days ago, ended its strike over the government’s non-implementation of a 12-month Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the payment of outstanding allowances.

All things considered, all categories of Nigeria’s medical personnel are in dire need of retraining to reduce the ghastly incidences of malpractice in our hospitals. However, they should not be covered up when they occur. This is PREMIUM TIMES’ strong message to the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN), as a critical regulatory authority, which appears to be failing in its oversight.

It owes Nigerians the public duty of reawakening, which ensures that hospitals are where lives are saved, and not abattoirs. When candle lights are used for surgeries as Resident Doctors once revealed, and water shortages remain rampant in some teaching hospitals, then these often poignant echoes of negligence should deeply bother President Bola Tinubu and the Federal Ministry of Health.