Grieving Husband Reveals How Wife Allegedly Died at LUTH After Misdiagnosis

A grieving husband, Ausbet Udebu, has alleged the incompetence of a doctor at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) led to the death of his 46-year-old wife, Ngozi, on March 28.

According to the Nation, the 56-year-old man said he and his family had gone to celebrate Good Friday at St. Dominic’s Catholic Church in Yaba when his daughter called him that their mother had severe stomach pain. He alleged a physician at LUTH subsequently diagnosed her of ulcer and treated her.

Following her death, however, an autopsy report showed that she died of Asphyxia – loss of consciousness due to the body’s inability to deliver oxygen to its tissues.

Udebu said, “We rushed her to LUTH around 9pm with my wife writhing in pains.  She underwent some tests/scan and the results were ready before 7am the following day.”

He added when he took the results to the doctors, he was asked to wait until they were ready for ward rounds.

He continued,

“After about 90 minutes, a doctor finally turned up, checked her and said the scan revealed some trace of ulcer. The doctor prescribed Gascol and an injection which were not available at LUTH. I bought the prescribed drugs. Still, there was no relief. The doctor then prescribed another brand of injection called IV NEXIUM. Again, I bought it.”

He claimed the emergency unit where the deceased was kept had no light, fan and good ventilation, so, he used his phone flashlight to assist the doctor in finding his wife’s vein and fanned her because she was sweating profusely and had difficulty breathing because of the stuffy room.

He added,

“My wife was moved to the female ward later where I was told that no patient relation was allowed to stay. Even her younger sister volunteered to stay and help her out in case of any need but the nurses refused, saying it was against the hospital’s policy.

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During this time, my wife’s condition deteriorated to the extent of needing oxygen. I bought an oxygen mask to help her breathe. In her weak state, my wife pleaded with the nurses to permit me or her younger sister to be with her through the night, but her plea was equally turned down. ‘Daddy, don’t go’ was the last words I heard her say. I felt dejected as I was forced out of the ward around 11pm.”

When he got to the hospital around 6 am with his eldest daughter the next day, his wife was dead. He said,

“The curtain over her bed was already drawn. Immediately I suspected something eerie. I did not want to believe my wife and mother of my four children was no more. I was told my wife died in the early hours of that morning. Nobody contacted the family when she passed on. Everything about LUTH is wrong. A ward with more than 35 patients with only two nurses available to attend to them. It was later I learnt any patient who registered in any of the doctors’ private clinics will have an army of doctors attending to him/her because he/she has paid in the doctor’s private clinic.”

LUTH spokesperson, Mr. Kelechi Otuneme, reportedly declined to comment, saying the hospital management is investigating the case.