It’s been tale of blood and pain and tears for families and friends of many patients admitted into Rayyan Hospital – a private hospital located adjacent the Keffi LGA secretariat. Unconfirmed accounts put the number of patients to have died in the hospital in the last 14 days at 9 or even more. I was there on Sunday to check on a friend – Dr. Suru Damisa who was admitted to the hospital for an appendectomy. I am no medical professional, but when I saw what looked like three different sutures, one on the left, middle and right side of his abdomen, I told my companions that something had gone terribly wrong with the procedure. Appendectomy is one of the easiest medical procedures in this modern age. We had expected to meet late Damisa in high spirits, but he was sedated all through our visit. This kept nibbling at me.
Of course, nobody paid me any heed. Folks instead preferred to invest their time in prayers for his recovery. While we were there, we ran into another friend who told us that his father was also a patient just a room away from Dr. Damisa’s. We used the opportunity to check on the old man to register our empathy. But all the while, my mind was pulling at me, that something has gone wrong with Dr. Damisa’s surgery. Didn’t want to sound like an alarmist, so I kept it to myself.
I was called in Wednesday, 18 August with disturbing but hardly surprising news that Dr. Damisa had given up the ghost. After pressing for details, I was told the only thing the Doctor registered as an explanation was that: in the process of appendectomy, a tumor was discovered around his caecum or so it was claimed and it had to be removed. This explained the second opening. The third opening, they were told was made in a bid to hunt down the rest of the tumor that the doctors failed to remove with the second surgery. I didn’t see the body for I arrived the hospital too late, however, I was told that a fourth opening may have been made, supposedly to releave his system of fluid gathering inside. Those on ground told me of how creased blood accompanied the suction pipe when the nurses extubated.
Expectedly, tempers flared to a burning point when questions started hitting the doctor as many colleagues pressed for specifics. However, the doctor was let off the hook by a pastor, also a colleague of Damisa who declared with dogmatic finality that our friend’s time had come. It was an act of God he finalized, and that any attempt to question the doctor is synonymous with questioning God. Well, the second patient we went to see on Sunday was also pronounced dead today, 19 August, 2021. And just as I was registering my shock, someone hit me with a thunder bolt. Apparently, 7 people had lost their lives prior to the death of Damisa, in the same hospital within the space of 10 – 14 days. Of course, even if confirmed, the deaths may well be ruled out as a string of bad luck. However, it would have been interesting to test the laws even if for the sake of the doctor’s professional integrity.
During my postgraduate study in ABU, one of our lecturers had brought up the issue of Nigeria’s porous culture of redress. He narrated how a colleague’s death was caused by a doctor at ABUTH Shika. Even though that case was glaring enough, the ‘God’s time’ argument was advanced by friends and well-wishers to let the quack doctor off the hook. Many Nigerians have lost loved ones to dereliction of duty, negligence, incompetence or all. These failed professional always hide under widespread dogmatic presuppositions to commit fatal crimes against humanity knowing that they will go scot-free.
Many people may not be aware, but medical negligence was expressly discussed in the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act 2004. The provision states inter alia… That Medical negligence can be said to be the failure of the medical practitioner to exercise a reasonable duty of care in the course of his duty as a professional in that field. To fully appreciate the position of medical negligence in Nigerian laws, the following were clearly set out as the scope of Medical Negligence:
1. Failure to attend promptly to a patient requiring urgent attention when the practitioner was in a position to do so.
2. A manifestation of incompetence in the assessment of a patient.
Making an incorrect diagnosis particularly when the clinical features were so glaring that no reasonable skillful practitioner could have failed to notice them.
3. Failure to advise, or proffering wrong advice to a patient on the risk involved in a particular operation or course of treatment, especially if such an operation or course of treatment is likely to result in serious side effects like deformity or loss of an organ.
4. Failure to obtain the consent of the patient (informed or otherwise) before proceeding on any surgical procedure or course of treatment, when such consent was necessary.
Making a mistake in treatment e.g. amputation of the wrong limb, inadvertent termination of a pregnancy, prescribing the wrong drug in error for a correctly diagnosed ailment, etc.
5. Failure to refer or transfer a patient in good time when such a referral or transfer was necessary.
Failure to do anything that ought reasonably to have been done under any circumstance for the good of the patient.
6. Failure to see a patient as often as his medical condition warrants or to make proper notes of the practitioner’s observations and prescribed treatment during such visits or to communicate with the patient or his relation as may be necessary with regards to any developments, progress or prognosis in the patient’s condition.
Pursuant to it’s mandate, the MDCN, a body backed by the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act (2004) advanced its statutory function as provided within its legal framework to codify the rules of professional conduct for medical and dental practitioners in its Code of Medical Ethics in Nigeria, 2008. This code lays down the standard of acceptable medical and dental practice in Nigeria. Unfortunately, this law is mostly moribund as cases of medical litigations remain very negligible.
For instance, in one of the most celebrated cases of medical negligence in the case of First Bank Nigeria Plc. V. Banjo, the court averred that the following elements constitute medical negligence:
1. That the defendant owed the plaintiff a duty to exercise due care.
2. That the defendant failed to exercise the due care, and;
3. That the defendant’s failure was the cause of the injury of the plaintiff.
In the case of Dr. Damisa, I will go on a limb to aver that if the Medical and Dental Practitioners Investigating Panel and the Medical and Dental Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal were to have been petitioned to investigate the cause of his death, the doctor(s) at Rayyan Hospital may have been found culpable with respect to items 2, 3 and 5 of the scope of medical negligence as itemized above.
Nigerians must understand that seeking redress after glaring cases of medical negligence also helps the medical profession. It’s more unlikely for doctors to make silly mistakes where they know they are sure to be called to account for their actions. Evidence abound of doctors who faced investigation and punishment. The doctors who cared for Michael Jackson – Conrad Murray; and even the Spanish surgeon – AM who operated on late Nigerian first lady – Stella Obasanjo as well as several other people were made to pay for their incompetence. These things contribute a great deal in standardising the medical profession. Nigerian must discontinue this excessive godliness in favour of professional processes. Doctors need to be held accountable. Only then will Nigerians get the kind of Medicare they deserve!
