Delta State government has begun a probe into the death of four newborns in one of its hospitals.
The probe followed the revelation of how one of the children died in controversial circumstances by her mother, Mrs Chisom Ndubueze.
In a reaction to the unfortunate incident, the commissioner for health, Dr Mordi Ononye, said, “Part of what I read was that the doctor on duty was drunk, and I was able to establish that the doctor on duty that night was actually in the call room and they put a call across to him and why he didn’t wake up, I do not know.”
Ononye said everybody’s role is being examined from the cleaners, the nurses and the doctors on duty and if found guilty, the officer involved will be made to face the full wrath of the law.
The incident occurred at the Central Hospital, Sapele.
Narrating her ordeal that night, Mrs Chisom Ndubueze said her baby was stalled in her birth canal for four hours in the hospital unattended to.
The 28-year-old lady insisted that her baby would still be alive and kicking if not for the hospital’s nonchalant attitude.
She said she went to the hospital at about after 12 in the afternoon of 1st September and she was admitted and the nurses on duty told her they would not attend to her till 11pm.
According to her, “When the doctor came in around 11pm, he asked me to buy some things which I did and they took me from the maternity ward to the labour ward and he (the doctor) inserted something inside me and left.
“The nurses brought drip and fixed it on me, I was restless because I was going through pain then.”
Mrs Ndubueze stated further that the nurses left her and after that time, she said she could feel the baby coming out.
“But it was stalled in the birth canal, for four hours I battled with it, it was around 4am that I now beckon on the nurses to check me again, when the nurses came, they told me the baby was progressing, I had to beg them around 5am again, before they came, and took me to the last labour room.”
“The baby’s head was now out but it was still stalled, I was now begging them to help me bring out the baby, I could touch the baby’s head, but the nurses were still telling me that it was not yet time for the baby to come out that I should still push, I now start to push, when I could no longer push, I started begging them to help me bring out the baby.
“I was still struggling with the baby stalled in my birth canal when one of the nurses said her time was up. I was begging her not to leave and that she should help me find the doctor, that was when they started looking for doctors but he was nowhere,” she said.
She said when the doctor came in around 7am to check on her, the baby was still alive then and he left her again.
She said she was in tears and even pleaded with the doctor that came that morning not to leave her like that but they still insisted there was no light to use to help her in delivering the baby.
“It was later that one of the doctors came and was now trying to help me. He was trying to see if he could put on the light and when the light came on, the said vacuum extraction, they were trying to use was not even working, they now left the machine and started making efforts before then I realised the baby was no more moving and the baby was dead,” she said breaking into tears again.
Meanwhile, her husband, Mr Elijah Ndubueze, has through a law firm in Benin City, Edo State, V.N. Eluma & Co Barristers, Solicitors & Advocates (Legal Practitioners & Property Consultants), written to the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria over the alleged medical negligence that led to the neonatal death of four newborn babies on the 1st and 2nd September 2022, by the management of Central Hospital in Sapele.
In a letter on Saturday, the law firm after narrating what transpired that night alleged that from 2pm on the 1st of September to 8am on the 2nd of September there was no doctor to attend to Chisom, wife of Mr Elijah Ndubueze, who was among the women that lost their babies in the hospital. The letter has been sent to the state commissioner for health and the chairman of the Delta State Hospital Management Board, Asaba.
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