Medical check up terminates the life of Olufunmilayo Adebayo at UCH on HWN JUSTICE

Mrs. Olufunmilayo Adebayo, 58, on Monday, January 25 this year drove to the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, in company of her house help, Odunayo to complete her medical checkup which she had commenced a week earlier at the hospital. She died while the procedure was being performed.

According to her husband, Aare Femi Adebayo, a businessman, a week before the check up and unfortunate death of Olufunmilayo, she had told him that she wanted to go for a comprehensive medical checkup to ascertain her state of health because she lost her sister, Mrs. Toluwalase Akinola to cancer in July, last year.

He said that his wife was of the opinion that since her sister died of the disease, it is important for her to take preventive measures by running comprehensive tests, and he agreed with her.

He said: “And she started the tests, and the last test was supposed to be on Monday, July 25 because she had initially gone for heart, and colon test among others, and they were all okay. So, on the preceding Saturday, she started using what they gave to her to be using, it is a liquid substance like bottle water. On Monday, she completed the drug and told me she was going to UCH and I said ok, bye.

I was somewhere holding a meeting in Ibadan when my house girl, Odunayo who went with her to the hospital called me over the phone  to say ‘sir, mummy is going through some kind of problem. The pain is too much, sir.’ I rushed to the hospital and when I got to where she was running the test, I overheard her telling them (doctors) that she was no longer interested in the test and that they should normalize her system and allow her to go home. When I asked why she was feeling the pain, a doctor who met me by the door said ‘ehmm when we put gas into her, we discovered that she had pain.

Adebayo, a multimillionaire and popular business man said he and his wife remained at the hospital till 2.00a.m. the following day (Tuesday) when they  went for X-ray to see what went wrong after which the doctors said they  would take her for surgery because the lungs or intestine was not okay.  He said at that point he began to suspect that too much gas was put in her and her intestine was damaged in the process because both her intestines and lungs were certified okay before the test began.

Funny enough, another doctor came in and said she would need operation and the first thing he said to me was ‘do you have the money?. Because if you don’t have the money, we can’t take her to the theater”. And I said ‘how much is the cost?’ and he said around N110,000. I said no problem as long as my wife will be brought back to normal. I had already spent over N100,000 from the time I arrived to when they requested for another theatre money,” he said.

He said while they were still discussing and moving to the ward, he noticed a nurse making gestures to the doctor suggesting that his wife was no longer breathing, adding, “I held and shook my wife on the stretcher but  realized that the deed has been done. Through carelessness, negligence and incompetence , the doctors killed my wife. They just took that woman’s life. The doctor started appealing to me that he is an orphan. I told him to stay away from me.

The bereaved husband, subsequently hired two Senior Advocates of Nigeria - Akin Olujinmi and Rotimi Akeredolu - to petition the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, over the mysterious death of his wife,  

The lawyers wrote to the hospital demanding the release of the deceased post mortem. Curiously, there was no response to the first letter written to the Chief Medical Director on February 5th demanding the release of late Funmilayo’s post mortem within five days.

The lawyers  wrote  again in another letter dated February 13th which read in part: “Independent Post-Mortem -Late Mrs Adebayo Olufunmilayo -having reneged in making the result available, Aare Adebayo has resolved to engage an independent pathologist to conduct an independent examination into the cause of the death of his late wife---.

The lawyers demanded that such independent examination be conducted within seven days in view of the fact that the burial of Funmilayo has been fixed for between February 25th and 26th.

Late Mrs Olufunmilayo was buried last Friday while the case was still ongoing.

When contacted  over the incident, the UCH Public Relation Officer, Mr. Deji Bobade told our correspondent that in as much as the deceased was a private patient, it was ethical to treat the issue privately.

While expressing sympathy with the bereaved family, he however explained that the hospital management may address a press conference on the incident in the next few days should the family resolve to make it a public issue.

Source: DailyTrust, HWN Africa.