The Bauchi State chapter of the International Federation of Female Lawyers (FIDA) has threatened to institute legal action against the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital (ATBUTH) and the Bauchi State Specialist Hospital, both in Bauchi, over the death of a 30-year-old woman, Seliha Adamu Misau.
The association’s chairperson, Mrs. Fatima Abubakar, stated this while reacting to the death of the woman, who is the wife of a staff member of the Bauchi Radio Corporation (BRC).
According to Abubakar, FIDA will have no option left than to resort to legal action if justice is not done in the case of deceased Seliha.
According to her, “Justice must be done on this case or else we institute a suit against them.”
Narrating to journalists how he lost his wife due to the negligence of the two hospitals in the Bauchi State capital, the husband of the deceased, Adamu Yusuf Misau, said that his pregnant wife had complications and delivered a stillbirth child on July 22 at a primary health care facility where she had her antenatal clinic.
According to the bereaved husband, he had to rush the deceased to the ATBUTH due to bleeding.
Misau said his wife underwent surgical operation at the ATBUTH, adding that he was told in the morning of August 4, 2020 that Seliha needed to be placed on dialysis machine.
He said that the hospital said that its dialysis machine was not functioning and as such the deceased was referred to the Bauchi State Specialist Hospital.
“They told us that their machine was not functioning at the time but referred us to the Bauchi State Specialist Hospital. This happened in the morning of 4th of August.
“But sadly, they did not release her to go for the dialysis at the Specialist Hospital until 11pm; she was delayed for about 12 hours.
“When they finally released her, one of the doctors torn a sheet of paper without any letter head of the hospital (ATBUTH), then wrote to the receiving hospital, saying: ‘Sir, to whom it may concern, please, kindly help and suture the site that I forgot to suture. I have already dressed the site by the time I saw the suture, which she signed,” Misau narrated.
The bereaved husband said one of the staff of dialysis unit of the hospital, a lady, asked him to pay N14,000 to put his wife on patient’s dress, which he paid.
He said when he demanded from the lady who collected the money for a receipt, she declined and said that payment of cash is a routine in the unit.
According to him, on getting to the Specialist Hospital, they were told that the head of the unit was on Sallah break but she called some of her subordinates.
He added that the person in whose custody the key to the dialysis room was did not pick calls put through his phone and later switched off the phone.
“The staff who they said was in custody of the key did not respond to calls put across, sadly he switched off the phone. We were not attended to till about 2:00am before returning back to ATBUTH.
“While there, we narrated our experience but nothing was done to help my wife. Painfully, my wife died about two hours after,” he said.
Misau said all efforts he made to see the Acting Chief Medical Director (CMD) of ATBUTH, Dr. Saidu Abubakar Kadas, to make a formal complaint was not successful.
In a swift reaction, Dr Kadas told journalists that the ATBUTH management is not aware of the unfortunate incident.
He stated that the bereaved husband ought to have written a formal complaint to his (CMD’s) office, declaring that the management does not joke with cases like this.
“I’m just hearing this today. I have not received any written complaint in my office regarding this matter. I expected the man to have done this. We don’t joke with case like this,” Dr Kadas said.
While promising to initiate investigation into the allegations of negligence on the part of the hospital staff with a view to ensuring that justice is done, the Acting CMD solicit the cooperation of the bereaved husband.
Kadas implored Misau to write a formal complaint to the hospital management, saying that the Federal Governments owned tertiary hospital has no details about the deceased.
“We need to meet him because we don’t have any details of the deceased,” he said.
He then assured that the management will identify the staff member Musau claimed collected N14,000 from him, adding that the hospital dies not deal with cash.
“We will ensure that the indicted staff who was said to have collected the money be identified because we don’t deal with cash,” the Acting CMD assured.
