The family of the late Romanus Nwaosu of Amaeta village in Mgbowo, Awgu local government of Enugu state has accused one Dr Chibuoke and a nurse of killing their mother, Mrs Janet Nwaosu at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Ituku-Ozalla.
The family alleged that the said doctor (Chibuoke) and the nurse on Tuesday, October 18 injected Janet Nwaosu with a drug that killed her less than five minutes after being injected.
According to the family, the accused health practitioners were not the ones assigned to take care of the deceased at the hospital.
Miss Augustina Nwaosu, the daughter of the late Janet, who was taking care of her before her death, lamented that instead of showing remorse for the alleged killing of her mother, the Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Dr Obinna Onodugo, invited the police to arrest her for complaining and demanding justice.
She admitted that she broke window glasses in anger because one of the health practitioners allegedly responsible for her mother’s death was hiding in a room.
Narrating to SaharaReporters on Sunday how her mother was allegedly killed, Augustina said, "On Sunday, October 16, 2022, my mother started stooling and vomiting. I took her to UNTH around 2:00 pm. When we got there, she was admitted around 7:00 pm by Dr Obumneme Emmanuel who also gave us some prescriptions which we bought at the pharmacy. They started the medication, and she slept very well that very night.
"On the following day, Monday morning, she ate very well, we talked, and she slept. When she woke up, one of her hands was shaking. I called the doctor and after examination, he said that nothing was wrong with her, that she had lost strength and needed food for recovery.
“He advised that we give her vegetables and fruits to get better, that once they were done with the drugs and drips that he had prescribed for her, everything will normalise, and she would be fine. I said ‘okay’ and thanked him.
"From that morning till night, her hands still shook. I called the attention of the nurses on duty to it, and they told me that nothing was wrong with her. They also said she had lost strength and that she lost electrolytes, and would be fine before she finished taking the prescribed drugs. They said I should just make her sleep, and that the next morning, we would meet with the consultant who would go through her case and know what was wrong with her.
"So, we slept that night and, in the morning, my mum was telling me that she didn’t sleep very well. I told her to calm down, and that once the consultant came, she would be fine. She said okay, but that her shaky hands did not allow her to sleep very well. I urged her to eat while we waited for the chief consultant. Then she told me that she wanted to take pap (Akamu). I went and bought her the pap. After drinking the pap, I bathed her, and lay her on the bed. I told her to keep calm and that in the next few minutes, the consultant would be around to attend to her."
She said trouble started when she went outside to wash her mother's clothes around 9:00 am and a doctor came in and started shouting, "who is taking care of this patient?”.
“This patient is convulsing,” she quoted the doctor identified as Chibuoke as saying.
According to her, the nurses who were on night duty told the doctor that Mrs Nwaosu was not convulsing and that she had been like that since the previous day.
Augustina said they told the doctor that if it was a convulsion, she would not have met her in that state. According to her, the doctor was told that her mother was fine but only deficient in electrolytes.
"The female doctor insisted that this woman was convulsing. ‘Where is the daughter?’ she inquired, ‘get me diazepam’. I rushed to the pharmacy and bought the diazepam. When I came back, I told the doctor I had bought the drug. She said; ‘give it to the nurse sitting down’. It was my first time seeing that nurse. I gave the diazepam to the nurse. As the nurse was about to inject my mum with the diazepam, the doctor came in and asked, ‘did you dilute it?’
"The nurse said no, that it didn’t need to be diluted. The doctor said ‘okay, no problem, go ahead’. I interrupted them and said doctor, I have some water for injection in case you people want to dilute the drug. The doctor said no problem. Don’t worry. The nurse had already started giving it to her. The nurse then injected my mum. The doctor also left. Then, a few seconds after the injection, my mum started breathing heavily, through her mouth.
"I started shouting, calling them. This is not the way she was breathing because she was awake when that drug was given to her, but she slept off immediately and started breathing through her mouth. When I called the attention of the nurse to my mum’s degenerating situation, the nurse told me to call the doctor. I ran outside to get the doctor, but I couldn’t find her. I ran back calling for help, and I said to the nurse, why not use oxygen to revive my mom, later I will pay for the oxygen.
"The nurse went and started pressing her chest. When the matron came in and saw what was happening, she rushed and brought the oxygen. All of them were now gathered. Before they could fix the oxygen, my mum died, and the doctor rushed in. The doctor said ‘where is the daughter?’ She (the doctor) said ‘Nne, come let me explain things to you.’ I said I didn’t need to hear anything, just wake her up. I said this oxygen (therapy) is not working. I know a functional one when I see it. You people should bring my mum back to life. Then my sister started shouting, here is the doctor that killed my mother and she (doctor) ran away."
Augustina further stated that the nurse who administered the injection also disappeared, stressing that the two health practitioners were not the ones initially managing her mum.
"At about 10:11 am on Tuesday, we saw doctors including the Chief Consultant, Head of Department, among others. They gathered in the ward and started calling me; who is the daughter? Please come, we want to talk to you. I said no, I don’t want to hear anything. Please tell them to wake my mom up for me. They pleaded that I should calm down and that they were not meant to kill her, that it was just a mistake. They said what happened had happened and that I should take heart. I said no, they must revive my mum.
"So, one of the female nurses that worked the night the incident happened then asked me, why did you allow them to give her that drug? I asked her if she (the doctor) is not a qualified doctor. Why do you blame me? The doctor said I should get Diazepam and I simply obeyed. The nurse told me, but your mum had been like that since yesterday and we managed her. I retorted that she should stop querying me for following a doctor’s instruction.
"The doctors later asked if I had informed my people about what happened, and I said yes. Soon after, all of them dispersed from that section. Shortly, my uncle arrived because my father is dead. He said we would take her away and deposit her body in a mortuary close to our hometown, and we agreed."
She alleged that the hospital management delayed issuing her mum’s death certificate.
Augustina said, "My uncle requested my mum's death certificate to enable us to carry her remains and not have any issues with security agents on our way home. But the matron said that we should wait and that somebody was preparing the document. We waited till 5:00 pm. The bus that was brought to carry my mum also had to wait. None of them agreed to issue the document (death certificate). We waited till 6:00 pm, before I went to one of the rooms and opened the door in search of doctors or nurses to issue the certificate. It was then I saw the male nurse that gave my mother the injection that killed her. He was hiding there.
"Then I held him and started shouting, so you killed my mum, and you have been sitting down here since 9:00 am, enjoying the air conditioner? He now started pushing me away. Eventually, he pushed me out and locked the door. Then, out of anger, I went through the window and struck the window with a mop stick, breaking two glasses in the process. The security guards came and asked what the problem was.
"After narrating the story, they said we were not going to leave with the corpse until we had fixed the broken glasses. My uncle agreed but said they had to revive his sister too. They now called the Chief Medical Director, who then called the Ozalla Divisional Police Officer to come and arrest us. Shortly, some policemen stormed the hospital. When the policemen arrived at the chaotic scene, they didn’t even ask what happened.
"They just grabbed me and wanted to drag me into their vehicle, and I refused to enter. I said to the police that if I must enter that Hilux, they must also carry my mum with me and the people who killed her. When the police saw that emotions were very high, they called the DPO, and the DPO had to come to UNTH by himself and demanded an explanation. After I narrated what happened to him, the DPO requested the doctor, but the doctor was nowhere to be found.
"The DPO then asked for the nurse in question, I told him the nurse locked himself inside a room. The DPO banged the door very hard, and the nurse opened the door and came out. The DPO took both of us to their station to write statements. After writing the statement, I was granted bail and the DPO asked all of us to report back to the police station on Thursday, October 20.
"On Thursday, the CMD sent a lawyer to represent UNTH and one of the security officers along with the nurse in question. The lawyer told the DPO that the CMD said that the matter should be settled at the police station. The nurse also told the DPO that the doctor brought her to inject the drug and my mother was not her patient.”
Ikechukwu, Augustina's uncle who corroborated her account, also asked for justice. He called on the police to arrest the doctor, adding that she had not been seen since the incident.
Reacting to the development, Chief Medical Director, Dr Obinna Onodugo, described the situation as unfortunate.
However, he said it was wrong for the family to damage things at the hospital out of anger.
He said, "I called the police to arrest people that were destroying my properties. If the doctor is guilty, she will go in for that; I don't have a problem with that. Let it be clear we need to separate the matters as well. There are two matters here.
“One, somebody is alleging that a doctor killed her mother, no problem they can push that allegation to any level even to MDCN (Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria) to withdraw the license of the doctor. I am in full support of it. The second issue is that somebody is destroying the property of the federal government.
"If there's any problem they have, there is a channel to report that and once they didn't do that and started destroying things, I had to call the police. It is not complicated for me - I have sacked people because of their attitude to patients. I have given queries to people because of their attitude to patients. We have suspended people, we have seized people's salaries because of their attitude to patients when these things are reported to us.
"I am not in any way defending the staff members; you know how Nigeria public institutions are. I am not equally saying that the family of the deceased are not frustrated. But if everybody that is frustrated in our public institution decides to carry clubs and arms, then UNTH wouldn't be standing by now. Therefore, we cannot as responsible citizens, in any way justify or try to pardon this type of behaviour. It is unconscionable. It is wrong no matter your anger or agitation, you must learn to control yourself and use the proper channels to do things."
He, however, noted that the drug that Mrs Nwaosu was injected with could have killed her.
He said, "Information I got is that when the woman came in, she was having seizures, repeated seizures and anybody that is having repeated seizures - what it is called in medical terminology is 'status epilepticus' and the person will be given diazepam.
"Now there are two things - diazepam internationally is known to also depress respiration sometimes. So sometimes you can have side effects of respiratory depression; somebody could die. It does not mean negligence because you are targeting to change something which will kill this patient. However, in the cause of trying to treat this patient, the side effect of the drug kills this patient; it is not negligence because you have to do that which you have to do."
The CMD, however, insisted that he will not release Mrs Nwaosu’s remains to her family until those who destroyed the hospital facility are punished and the court orders him to release the body. He vowed that the hospital will follow the case to a logical conclusion.
Meanwhile, efforts to get the reaction of Dr. Chibuoke were unsuccessful as she did not answer her calls and also did not reply to a text message sent to her.