Orthopaedic hospital seizes corpse, Islamic family kicks
The National Orthopaedic Hospital,
Igbobi, Lagos (NOHIL), has been accused of seizing the corpse of a
61-year-old man, Bashiru Makanjuola, over the inability of his family to
pay bills totalling N471,810.
The family members told PUNCH Metro
that they were distraught over the development, saying the deceased was
supposed to have been buried the same day he died according to Islamic
rites.
They said the remains of Bashiru, who
was survived by four wives and eight children, had been held by the
hospital for over one month.
The third child of the family, Azeez,
explained that his father had been crushed by a hit-and-run driver in
Oshodi on September 1, 2015, while attempting to cross the road.
He said the deceased was first rushed to
the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, but was referred
to the NOHIL, where he was admitted.
He said, “We got to Igbobi at about
11.30pm and he was admitted at the hospital’s casualty ward. He was
seriously injured and the driver of the bus that hit him had fled.
“On September 5, he was moved to the
Intensive Care Unit, where an operation was conducted on him to treat
the internal wound he sustained. We were not told the charge. It was
later the management said we were to pay N29, 000 per day.
“By then, he had spent 10 days and we
quickly asked them to take him back to the ward, and he was taken to
Ward J. But the hospital said we should first settle the ICU bill of
N288, 000 before they can continue treatment. We begged them to
continue, that we would pay, but they refused.”
He said the family wrote a letter to the Chief Medical Director after Bashiru was left unattended to for a week in the ward.
A copy of the letter, which was obtained
by our correspondent, stated that the family had then been given bills
totalling N436,000.
The letter, dated October 2, added that
despite the payment of N115,000 out of the bills, the 61-year-old was
left unattended to.
It read in part, “We spoke with some
doctors and asked what was going on. The reply we got was that the
patient had been discharged and they could no longer give him any
treatment, that we should go and settle our bills and take him away.
“We appealed to them to continue with
the treatment, promising to settle the bills later. We later asked them
to release the patient to us since we were financially handicapped. This
man is a mere butcher; he has nothing to dispose of to settle his
bills. The man’s flesh is peeling on the bed. He has a very big wound on
his back and lap; and he has not been treated.
“But we were told that even if he died, we were still going to settle his bills before his remains would be released to us.”
It was learnt that it took four days before the CMD ordered that Basiru should be treated.
However, our correspondent learnt that the wounds by then had festered.
Azeez said, “Because he had been
abandoned for so long, he started having problems with his back. They
didn’t dress him or turn him.
“We asked them to let us take him away
from the hospital to somewhere else, but they insisted that we must
settle the bills before they would discharge him. And because we did not
have any money, we left him at the hospital, where he eventually died.”
PUNCH Metro learnt that the deceased was deposited in the hospital morgue on December 6, despite the protest of the family.
“We wrote another letter to them, urging
them to reduce the total amount, but they were adamant. We spent a lot
of money on tests, drugs and X-rays. We begged them, but they told us
that the MD said our bills could not be overlooked and that we should
pay what we owed,” Azeez added.
A relative of the deceased, Bashiru
Adeniyi, accused the hospital management of negligence, saying the
victim would not have died if he was not abandoned.
Punch
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