This
is the sad story of Mrs Essien who lost her only son, Shawn, a
two-year-five-month-old baby at a Lagos hospital due to the incompetence of the
doctor in charge. Mrs Essien who was a happy mom until now says she wants
justice for the death of her son and appealing to right authorities to
investigate the hospital in order to prevent more deaths from occurring. It’s
such a sad case. May we not lose our children, may the children we have used
our hands to carry not die in our hands, so sad.
“On
December 9, 2015, I took my two-year-five-month-old son to De Vitals Cares
Hospital at Babalola Bus Stop in Ilogbo for treatment. My child had been
restless all night and had woken up weak and with yellowish eyes. We hurriedly
left the house very early in the morning and got to the hospital a few minutes
past 7am. They inserted a cannula (into his body), took his blood and put him
on intravenous fluid immediately (after) his blood had been taken.
“I
asked the medical doctor attending to him why the IV was given and what drugs
were being injected into the IV, since the results of the tests weren’t out
yet. And my son wasn’t passing out stool or vomiting. He murmured ‘B-complex’
and walked away. About an hour later, the doctor walked back into the room and
I asked him if the test results were out and what the results of the tests
were, he said he would be back and walked out again. He kept coming in and out
of the room without telling me what the results were.
“This
got me very worried. I started to feel something was horribly wrong with my son
and that was why he didn’t want to tell me what the results were. The next time
he came into the room I told him I wanted to know what the test results were
and he said it was acute malaria and his PCV (packed cell volume) was 18 per
cent and that he might need a blood transfusion,” Essien said.
Another
IV, a saline solution, she noted was given to her son, with the hospital
medical staff saying it will “wash away the yellowness from my son’s eyes.”
But
her son’s condition worsened.
“My
son became very restless when the second IV fluid got half way and it seemed
like he was trying hard to breathe. I asked three nurses that came into the
room if they had a nebulizer but they all didn’t seem to know what a nebulizer
was. They said I shouldn’t be scared that it’s malaria parasite that made him
restless. They kept assuring me that by the next morning, he will be fine,”
Shawn’s mother said.
With
Shawn’s health not improving, the hospital reportedly gave him a third and a
fourth IV. At the third IV, his stomach, arms and feet were double of their
sizes, his mother said. Despite the baby’s worsening condition, Essien said the
hospital assured her the baby would be fine.
“My
son seemed to be finding it so hard to breathe. The doctor came in again and I
asked him exactly what all the IV fluids were for; that my child wasn’t passing
out any stool neither was he vomiting. I don’t think he needs any more IV
fluid. He left the room immediately and less than a minute later a nurse came
in and said the doctor asked her to take out the IV.
“At
about 10.33pm, the doctor came into the room and I said, ‘Doctor, please help
me. My baby isn’t getting any better.’ He replied ‘Madam, pray to God to help
you!’ He said he had decided to transfer my son and he wrote a referral letter
for me to take my son to another hospital. My son had started gasping and his
eyes seemed to have gone right into their sockets and looking even more
yellowish,” she added.
By
midnight, Essien and Shawn arrived at Isolo General Hospital. The chubby
two-year-old was said to have arrived too late as he died about two minutes
after he arrived the hospital.
“We
got to the Isolo General Hospital, past midnight. The doctor on call seemed
shocked after reading the referral letter. I remember him murmuring ‘What kind
of stupid doctor administered all this medication to a child!’ He immediately
put my son on oxygen and my son passed away in my arms after about two minutes.
Two
weeks after Shawn’s death, Essien got a call from one Dr. Vitalis Mezie, the
Chief Medical Director of the private hospital that treated her baby.
“I
got a call from a certain Dr. Vitalis. He said he was the owner and medical
director of the hospital where my son was treated. And that he was calling to
apologise for the incompetence of his staff, which led to my son’s demise. He
asked if I could send my address, so that he can come and apologise face to
face and pay condolence. He came over a few days later with a member of his
staff called Jerry.
“According
to Dr. Vitalis, on the day I brought my son to his hospital, he had a court
case in Ijebu-Ode (in Ogun State) and left a certain doctor in charge. The
doctor in charge had to go for Shiloh 2015 (Winners Chapel Church’s
convention/crusade), and (that doctor) invited another doctor who is a friend
to stand in for him in the hospital.
“Dr.
Vitalis went ahead to explain to us (my mother, my husband and I) how a nurse
had called him to explain the situation at the hospital and he ordered that my
son should be transferred to another hospital, because he didn’t want my son to
pass away in his hospital.
He
said when he was contacted while away in Ijebu-Ode, he knew his staff had
‘messed’ up, and it was ‘too late.’ He promised that the doctor who treated my
son would visit to ‘apologise’ for his mistakes. My husband asked him what the
doctor’s name was and he claimed he didn’t know, that when he came back from
Ijebu-Ode and heard the entire story of what happened, he ‘beat the hell out’
of the doctor and asked him never to come close to his hospital. He never
brought the doctor to apologise,” Shawn’s mother narrated.
When
Sunday Punch contacted Dr. Mezie, he denied taking responsibility for the
two-year-old’s death.
“I
have told her that the medical doctor who attended to her son is not our
doctor. He was just on a visit. We are not responsible for the death of her
son. It is not negligence of the hospital. You know some of these general
hospitals give a bad image of private hospitals; maybe they are having problems
with them (private hospitals), I don’t know.
“What
happened was that the woman refused blood transfusion when she was told that
her son’s PCV level was 18 – that was what my doctor told me when I came back.
She said she didn’t want blood transfusion.
“While
I was away (in Ijebu-Ode), and was informed that the baby’s condition was not
improving I told my staff to discharge the baby immediately. The baby did not
die in the hospital; the baby died at the general hospital. Nobody knew what
they did in the general hospital with the baby. The medical doctor who treated
the son was a visiting doctor. I was not around and my doctor was not around.
“I
didn’t go to apologise for any negligence on the part of my hospital. I only
went there to sympathise with her. Apologise for what? Why should we apologise?
The baby died in the general hospital. How can we apologise? What are we
apologising for? We did not apologise. In the normal Igbo culture, if someone
dies, you go and visit; and he was our patient. We referred him (to another
hospital) and a patient died and we are there to find out what happened,” De
Vitals’ medical director said.
Essien,
however, refuted Dr. Mezie’s claim that she did not allow the hospital to give
her son blood transfusion, saying that she is not a Jehovah’s Witness who will
refuse blood transfusion on religious grounds.
“The
doctor that attended to my son mentioned once that my son might need blood
transfusion and never again in the 16 hours I spent in that hospital was the
issue of my baby needing blood mentioned. Never! I have had two cesarean
sections. In both major operations, two pints of blood were demanded by the
hospital I used; my husband provided the blood, which I didn’t use at the end
of the day.
“I
am knowledgeable about these things and if I can get blood for myself why would
I refuse blood for my son? Why didn’t they refer me to another clinic
immediately since they claimed I refused that my son should be transfused? Why
did they keep us there for a whole 16 hours and kept pumping his tiny body with
IV fluids?” she said.
Dr.
Mezie also denied any attempt to shield the identity of the doctor who treated
Shawn.
“I
am not hiding the identity of the medical doctor. I will give you the number of
my doctor who brought him,” he promised.
He
had not done so when this report was filed. Repeated phone calls and text
messages to the medical director did not yield any fruit.
The
Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria has however expressed its interest in the
case.
Essien
said she was determined to get justice for her son.
“I
am going to petition the Nigeria Police Force. This man (Dr. Mezie) and his
hospital must be investigated. I will like the medical association to please
investigate this man and his hospital, to prevent more lives being lost either
to carelessness or negligence and to avoid a situation whereby any human being
will pass through the emotional pain and trauma I am currently going through
due to the death of my only son,” she said.
Source: The Punch
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