Heartbreaking : Woman Looses Young Kid in Lagos Hospital Due to The Doctors Incompetence, Please Read

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 incompetenceof the doctor in charge. Mrs Essien who was a happy mom until now says shewants justice for the death of her son and appealing to right authorities toinvestigate the hospital in order to prevent more deaths from occurring. It’s sucha sad case. May we not lose our children, may the children we have used ourhands to carry not die in our hands, so sad.



“On December 9, 2015, I took my two-year-five-month-old sonto De Vitals Cares Hospital at Babalola Bus Stop in Ilogbo for treatment. Mychild had been restless all night and had woken up weak and with yellowisheyes. We hurriedly left the house very early in the morning and got to thehospital a few minutes past 7am. They inserted a cannula (into his body), tookhis blood and put him on intravenous fluid immediately (after) his blood hadbeen taken.


“I asked the medical doctor attending to him why the IV wasgiven and what drugs were being injected into the IV, since the results of thetests weren’t out yet. And my son wasn’t passing out stool or vomiting. Hemurmured ‘B-complex’ and walked away. About an hour later, the doctor walkedback into the room and I asked him if the test results were out and what theresults of the tests were, he said he would be back and walked out again. Hekept coming in and out of the room without telling me what the results were.


“This got me very worried. I started to feel something washorribly wrong with my son and that was why he didn’t want to tell me what theresults were. The next time he came into the room I told him I wanted to knowwhat the test results were and he said it was acute malaria and his PCV (packedcell 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 herson, with the hospital medical staff saying it will “wash away the yellownessfrom my son’s eyes.”


But her son’s condition worsened.


“My son became very restless when the second IV fluid gothalf way and it seemed like he was trying hard to breathe. I asked three nursesthat came into the room if they had a nebulizer but they all didn’t seem toknow what a nebulizer was. They said I shouldn’t be scared that it’s malariaparasite that made him restless. They kept assuring me that by the nextmorning, he will be fine,” Shawn’s mother said.


With Shawn’s health not improving, the hospital reportedlygave him a third and a fourth IV. At the third IV, his stomach, arms and feetwere double of their sizes, his mother said. Despite the baby’s worseningcondition, Essien said the hospital assured her the baby would be fine.


“My son seemed to be finding it so hard to breathe. Thedoctor 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’tthink he needs any more IV fluid. He left the room immediately and less than aminute 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 hewrote a referral letter for me to take my son to another hospital. My son hadstarted gasping and his eyes seemed to have gone right into their sockets andlooking even more yellowish,” she added.


By midnight, Essien and Shawn arrived at Isolo GeneralHospital. The chubby two-year-old was said to have arrived too late as he diedabout two minutes after he arrived the hospital.


“We got to the Isolo General Hospital, past midnight. Thedoctor on call seemed shocked after reading the referral letter. I remember himmurmuring ‘What kind of stupid doctor administered all this medication to achild!’ He immediately put my son on oxygen and my son passed away in my armsafter about two minutes.


Two weeks after Shawn’s death, Essien got a call from oneDr. Vitalis Mezie, the Chief Medical Director of the private hospital thattreated her baby.


“I got a call from a certain Dr. Vitalis. He said he was theowner and medical director of the hospital where my son was treated. And thathe was calling to apologise for the incompetence of his staff, which led to myson’s demise. He asked if I could send my address, so that he can come andapologise face to face and pay condolence. He came over a few days later with amember of his staff called Jerry.


“According to Dr. Vitalis, on the day I brought my son tohis hospital, he had a court case in Ijebu-Ode (in Ogun State) and left acertain doctor in charge. The doctor in charge had to go for Shiloh 2015(Winners Chapel Church’s convention/crusade), and (that doctor) invited anotherdoctor who is a friend to stand in for him in the hospital.


“Dr. Vitalis went ahead to explain to us (my mother, myhusband and I) how a nurse had called him to explain the situation at thehospital 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, heknew his staff had ‘messed’ up, and it was ‘too late.’ He promised that thedoctor who treated my son would visit to ‘apologise’ for his mistakes. Myhusband 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 whathappened, he ‘beat the hell out’ of the doctor and asked him never to comeclose to his hospital. He never brought the doctor to apologise,” Shawn’s mothernarrated.


When Sunday Punch contacted Dr. Mezie, he denied takingresponsibility for the two-year-old’s death.


“I have told her that the medical doctor who attended to herson is not our doctor. He was just on a visit. We are not responsible for thedeath of her son. It is not negligence of the hospital. You know some of thesegeneral hospitals give a bad image of private hospitals; maybe they are havingproblems with them (private hospitals), I don’t know.


“What happened was that the woman refused blood transfusionwhen she was told that her son’s PCV level was 18 – that was what my doctortold me when I came back. She said she didn’t want blood transfusion.


“While I was away (in Ijebu-Ode), and was informed that thebaby’s condition was not improving I told my staff to discharge the babyimmediately. The baby did not die in the hospital; the baby died at the generalhospital. Nobody knew what they did in the general hospital with the baby. Themedical doctor who treated the son was a visiting doctor. I was not around andmy doctor was not around.


“I didn’t go to apologise for any negligence on the part ofmy hospital. I only went there to sympathise with her. Apologise for what? Whyshould we apologise? The baby died in the general hospital. How can weapologise? What are we apologising for? We did not apologise. In the normalIgbo culture, if someone dies, you go and visit; and he was our patient. Wereferred him (to another hospital) and a patient died and we are there to findout what happened,” De Vitals’ medical director said.


Essien, however, refuted Dr. Mezie’s claim that she did notallow the hospital to give her son blood transfusion, saying that she is not aJehovah’s Witness who will refuse blood transfusion on religious grounds.


“The doctor that attended to my son mentioned once that myson might need blood transfusion and never again in the 16 hours I spent inthat hospital was the issue of my baby needing blood mentioned. Never! I havehad two cesarean sections. In both major operations, two pints of blood weredemanded by the hospital I used; my husband provided the blood, which I didn’tuse at the end of the day.


“I am knowledgeable about these things and if I can getblood for myself why would I refuse blood for my son? Why didn’t they refer meto another clinic immediately since they claimed I refused that my son shouldbe transfused? Why did they keep us there for a whole 16 hours and kept pumpinghis tiny body with IV fluids?” she said.


Dr. Mezie also denied any attempt to shield the identity ofthe doctor who treated Shawn.


“I am not hiding the identity of the medical doctor. I willgive you the number of my doctor who brought him,” he promised.


He had not done so when this report was filed. Repeatedphone calls and text messages to the medical director did not yield any fruit.


The Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria has howeverexpressed 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 medicalassociation to please investigate this man and his hospital, to prevent morelives being lost either to carelessness or negligence and to avoid a situationwhereby any human being will pass through the emotional pain and trauma I amcurrently going through due to the death of my only son,” she said.


Sunday Punch

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