News
By Wale Akinola
If Akinbola David Akingbehin
knew the trip his wife, Margaret
Moronke, was making to the
Lagos University Teaching
Hospital, LUTH, was a journey of
no return, on Thursday,
February 28, he certainly would
have stopped her. But fate has a
way of playing a cruel joke on
people.
Moronke was pregnant with the
expectation that she would give
birth to their third child. The
couple already had two children,
the younger is 12 years old. The
choice of LUTH for the delivery
was because they thought the
hospital, being a tertiary
institution, was the best around.
Moronke, being fairly old for
child bearing at 42, should not
be trusted with just any hospital
to handle the delivery or so they
thought. But that was their
undoing. About 33 hours after
Moronke checked into LUTH, she
and her baby were dead.
Reason: The hospital staff
allegedly went negligent.
The whole story, infact, reeks of
negligence on the part of the
LUTH personnel. The
management acknowledged that
much in their letter of
condolence to the Akingbehin
family when they said the
negligent staff were under
investigation. Four of the staff, it
was learnt, are already on
suspension.
On that Thursday, February 28
when Moronke was leaving
home at 6 a.m., for her ante-
natal clinic at LUTH, she was hale
and hearty, according to family
sources. She, in fact, drove
herself. About two hours later,
however, she called home to tell
the husband her doctor told her
that she was due for Caesarean
Section, CS, and that she had to
be admitted in the hospital right
away for the CS.
Actually, doctors at LUTH had
told her earlier that because of
her “old age for child bearing”
coupled with the fact that she
had an operation for fibroid
removal earlier, it would be risky
to allow her to go into labour
ahead of the delivery of the
baby. Her expected delivery date
(EDD) was put at March 3.
LUTH emergency entrance
Hence delivery ahead of labour
was the reason Moronke was
booked for CS when she visited
LUTH on February 28 for ante-
natal. The twist in events for the
husband, Akinbola, was
unexpected. But when the wife
put a call through to him that
the doctor had proposed that
she be admitted for the CS that
Thursday and that her position
was that the operation should
be shifted to the following
Monday to allow her made
adequate preparations, the
husband’s statement was that
she should follow the doctor’s
instruction.
Akinbola actually visited Moronke
at the LUTH female ward where
she had been admitted that day.
However, nothing happened as
the CS was not carried out
before the husband returned
home that evening. By 7.30 a.m.
the following day, Friday, March
1, when Akinbola called the wife,
she told him that she had been
moved to the labour room and
that a consultant surgeon, later
identified as Prof Makew, had
come to question the doctor in
charge of her case why the CS
had not been carried out.
In essence, Moronke told the
husband that the surgeon
directed that the operaton
should take place anytime
thereafter. But by 8.30 a.m when
Akinbola arrived LUTH, nothing
had been done. The additional
information Moronke gave the
husband was that a machine
that the consultant used to test
her pregnancy indicated that the
baby in the womb was already
tired and needed to be brought
out immediately.
The wife was said to have
continually complained of
excruciating pains in the
stomach. But the LUTH
personnel told the husband that
they needed blood in case the
wife would require it in the
course of the CS. Akinbola
donated some blood and called
in his brother who also donated
to make up the difference.
Meanwhile, the wife was said to
have been left in pains in the
labour room without the
personnel attending to her.
At some point, according to
husband, the doctor who
should have carried out the CS
on Moronke was said to have
gone to eat. And by the time he
returned, he was too tired to
attend to the pregnant woman.
The husband said it was not
until 4p.m. that he was called
into a doctor’s office adjoining
the labour room where he had
earlier been sent out because of
his persistent calls that the LUTH
personnel should attend to his
dying wife to be informed that
his wife and the baby she was
carrying had died.
“It was like my whole world
collapsed. We live in Jakande
Estate, Isolo where we have a
General Hospital close to us.
There are also private hospitals
that we could have used. But we
considered LUTH as the best
hospital to deliver her of the
pregnancy since it is a tertiary
medical institution.
That turned out to be our
greatest mistake”, the tearful
husband told Sunday Vanguard.
“The LUTH staff were negligent.
They killed my wife and our
baby. What they told us was that
she was to be delivered by CS.
And she had been with them
since Thursday morning.
What stopped the from carrying
out the CS that Thursday
knowing the danger my wife was
exposed to. They waited till
Friday, in fact about 33 hours
after she arrived the hospital
without attending to her, and I
watched helplessly the agony of
Moronke until she passed on”.
A family source said they would
formally demand explanation on
what happened from the LUTH
authorities and possibly ask for
damages. Moronke was buried
amid tears by family and friends
on Friday, March 8 at her Isolo,
Lagos residence. Lending
credence to the negligent
circumstance of the death of
Moronke and her baby, the
LUTH authorities, last week, sent
a six-man team to condole with
the family.
According to a letter delivered to
the family by the team during
the visit, LUTH had begun an
investigative/disciplinary process
“to ensure that any of our staff
found to be negligent in the
unfortuante demise of your wife
is sanctioned accordingly, to
serve as a detterent to others”.
The letter, dated March 8, was
signed by the Director of
Administration, Ayo Olagunju,
for the CMD, Prof Akin Osibogun,
who was said to be out of the
country.
Indeed, four members of staff of
the hospital implicated in the
Moronke Akingbehin affair have
allegedly been suspended
pending the conclusion of
investigations.
Sunday Vanguard learnt that this
is the first time LUTH will act so
swiftly in decades in cases of
negligence involving staff.
The LUTH condolence letter
reads: “Further to the
Condolence Telephone
Conservation between you and
the undersigned earlier today, I
write on behalf of the
Management Board, and staff of
the Lagos University Teaching
Hospital to express our deepest
sympathy and heartfelt
condolences on the sad and
untimely death of your wife, the
late Mrs. Margaret Ronke
Akingbehin and your unborn
child, which occurred in our
Hospital on Friday, 1st March,
2013.
“An amiable person, loved by all
our staff who came across her, it
is a sad twist of fate that your
wife met her untimely death at
the age of 42 in our Hospital
where she registered and had
been attending her Ante natal
clinic regularly. We know that
words alone cannot console you
at this moment of tears; but our
prayer is that God Almighty will
grant you and the children the
fortitude to bear this irreparable
loss.
“Please be rest assured that
management has begun an
investigative/disciplinary process
to ensure that any of our staff
found to be negligent in the
unfortunate demise of your wife
is sanctioned accordingly, to
serve as a deterrent to others.
“Please extend our heartfelt
condolences to your children
and other members of the
family”. vanguardngr.com/2013/03/my-wifes-avoidable-death-at-luth/e

if the late woman was a Jehovah witness hospital would blame her for refusing blood treatment. most public hospitals are not functioning well. the pathologists that to be checking wrongful deaths have been outlawed by medical lab scientists in the name of hospital politics.in developed countries pathologists determine quality of health care. private hospitals areh even trying with their limited resources and equipments.

Omg! A pregnant woman waiting 33 hours without a medical personnel seein her in a hospital. Thats ridiculous. See as them jus Waste mama and pikin. Some of our hospitals are worst than dead traps. May they Rip

I cant Just stop crying. The staff are wicked. God will surely repay them with their evil. Which mumu suspension? Will suspension bring back the woman and her baby? They should better take them to firing squad.
I used to prefer government hospital for so many reasons but with this, abeg, i will branch good private hospital. Thats why i dont blame the rich running abroad to give birth. If the woman had gone abroad, this wouldnt be the story but owabe thingz.
RIP.

Just when you think these government hospitals can't shock you anymore with their negligence, they pull another shocker. They just left the poor woman in excruciating pains for 33 hours till she and her baby died. What palusible explanation do they want to give? No surgical equipment available? These people make me sick. Hope every personel involved is arrested.

rezzy: I cant Just stop crying. The staff are wicked. God will surely repay them with their evil. Which mumu suspension? Will suspension bring back the woman and her baby? They should better take them to firing squad.
I used to prefer government hospital for so many reasons but with this, abeg, i will branch good private hospital. Thats why i dont blame the rich running abroad to give birth. If the woman had gone abroad, this wouldnt be the story but owabe thingz.
RIP.

My dear pls do. These government hospitals are more or less death centres these days. They treat women in labour like gabbage. They're no longer moved by death cos they've seen so much of it.

Negligence-a big part of the rot in every sector of the country.
I doubt the doctors and nurses would have treated the case lightly if it was their own private practice.
Even though we enjoy shifting all of the blame on the government,we remain a big part of the problem.
Sorry for your loss Mr. Akinbola.Your wife was just unlucky to be one of the many unfortunate cases birthed by a system where nothing is programmed to work!!

my advice is every family or individual should have a family or personal doctor that would advise you on best place to receive medical treatment.in the past when doctors visit home things a lot better.

@Poster- I feel your pain. May God console you on this great loss.Unfortunately, the private hospitals are not better. I had my daughter in a renowned private hospital in Lagos but ended up being butchered in CS Surgery. I had to go to LUTH to have the damage rectified.I was a hair's breath from being a statistic.Subsequent delivery was in Luth where there are a plethora of qualified Docs but they have a rather laissez-faire attitude to work. We need to start holding our Leaders accountable for the rot in the Health sector. Not everyone can afford to jet out of the country for something as uncomplicated as child birth. This is the 21st century yet, Nigeria keeps topping the charts for Child and maternal health mortality. I am so pained @ this story. May God help us all.

Wonder why nurses are not implicated in this story ?
Laalamed, you have beef with med scientist ni?
@topic, Sad story. If you can't do it doctor refer what's so hard about that ; now refering from LUTH to where for God's sake. We're all sitting ducks in this hellhole called Nigeria.