The late chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Ekiti state chapter, Paul Omotosho may have died due to negligence and poor work attitude of health workers at the Ekiti State Teaching Hospital (EKSUTH).
Mr Omotosho was rushed to EKSUTH under an emergency situation on Tuesday night. But PREMIUM TIMES learnt that he was not attended to till he died.
An impeccable source at EKSUTH, who preferred to remain anonymous, said that when Mr Omotosho was brought to the Accident & Emergency department of the hospital, those on duty didn’t treat the issue with the needed urgency, nor did the doctors on duty respond to the distress call urgently.
“They brought him in an emergency kind of situation around 10 p.m. on Tuesday, but instead of admitting him immediately, they were busy with routine issues such as his card, his file and were foot-dragging. He was never admitted before he gave up the ghost.
“In fact, relatives of patients in the emergency ward were raining curses on the health workers. The doctors too were not immediately on hand to give him the needed treatment to save his life,” the source said.
PREMIUM TIMES gathered that the late Mr Omotosho was using the Afe Babalola multi system hospital.
But his relatives took him to EKSUTH because of the unpredictable traffic situation of the road leading to the multi system hospital, and because they believed he could be stabilised at EKSUTH before being being transferred to the multi system hospital.
Angered by the development, PREMIUM TIMES learnt that the state government has directed the EKSUTH management to compile the names of those who were on duty on Tuesday night, probably for the purpose of meting out appropriate sanctions.
When asked to react to the allegations, EKSUTH spokesperson, Rolake Adewumi, told our reporter that she could not comment on the matter since the Ekiti State government had set up a committee to investigate the issues surrounding the general work ethics at the hospital.
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She added that the deceased was brought into the EKSUTH at about 10 p.m. on the fateful day, adding that she was not at the hospital to have firsthand information as regards what transpired.
In recent times, there have been reported cases of assault on medical personnel at the hospital by aggrieved relatives of patients who felt that their wards’ lives could have been saved if they were properly attended to by health workers.
Recall that some people, believed to be relatives of a deceased person, recently assaulted doctors on duty at the Accident & Emergency department of the hospital over claims of alleged negligence, which resulted in the death of their loved one.
They subsequently took away the corpse of their relative in anger without following the laid down procedure of removing corpses from the morgue at the hospital.
As a result of the assault, the Resident Doctors of EKSUTH held an emergency meeting and declared an indefinite strike over alleged incessant assaults on their members while discharging their duty at the hospital.
The Ekiti State Government has set up a 10-member panel of enquiry to investigate the perceived poor work attitude of health workers in the institution.
The state Commissioner for Health and Human Services, Oyebanji Filani, in a statement made available to reporters in Ado Ekiti on Wednesday, disclosed that the 10-man committee, which is co-chaired by a former Commissioner for Health in the state, Femi Thomas, and Permanent Secretary of the State Hospital management Board, Sunkanmi Alabi, is expected to look into the avalanche of complaints by residents against the hospital.
The committee, which is to submit an interim report within 72 hours, according to Mr Filani, would investigate “all bottlenecks with a view to streamlining and improving service delivery in the hospital following concerns raised by residents regarding the challenges they face in accessing healthcare services at the hospital.”
The health commissioner urged the public to remain calm and law-abiding, and assured that the state government would effectively address all lingering issues.
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