Nigeria’s failed health care system caused dad’s death – Daughter of patient wrongly labelled COVID-19 case

Long after the COVID-19 pandemic is over, many people will continue to remember the viral outbreak because of the pain inflicted on them as a result the loss of their loved ones. One of such is Nenelyn Iwelumo, daughter of the late Mr. Emmanuel Iwelumo, who died after being rejected by several hospitals in Lagos on suspicion of being infected with COVID-19. She shares the family’s ugly experience and pain in this report by Tessy Igomu

Mr. Emmauel Iwelumo, a retiree residing in the Ikorodu area of Lagos, had quite an optimistic view about life and the Nigerian health care system.

According to his only daughter, Nenelyn, this was the mindset he had even as death stared him in the face.

As she mourns, she is certain her 63-year-old father had every chance to survive the sudden ailment that claimed his life, despite being diabetic and hypertensive.

Nenelyn believes her father’s chance of survival was narrowed by his inability to get prompt medical attention from the country’s apex hospitals: the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Aba; the Infectious Disease Hospital, Yaba; Federal Medical Centre, Ebute Meta; and Military Hospital, Yaba.

She is especially accusing LUTH of complicity in the death of her father, claiming they denied him lifesaving medical intervention on the grounds of not having bed space and being a suspected COVID-19 case.

Poorly treated and rejected

Nenelyn told Punch Healthwise that health care workers on night duty at the Accident and Emergency Unit of LUTH, left her father unattended to in an ambulance for nine hours, noting that the neglect aggravated his already dire health condition and led to his death

According to the distraught lady, her father was rushed to the facility on Thursday, April, 23, from a private hospital, St. Raphael Divine Mercy, in Ikorodu, at about 7.pm. She said a female doctor, identified as Omotara, claimed he could not be admitted due to lack of bed space and that he could be a suspected COVID-19 case.

She also alleged that the doctor, as well as the nurses, never bothered to find out what was wrong with her father, despite being told that he was in a critical condition and on oxygen.

“They just stood behind the locked gate and were looking at us like lepers. At a point, the female doctor collected the referral letter we came with, scanned through it and told us to leave the premises as there was no bed space.

“I pleaded with her to attend to him inside the ambulance because he was already showing signs of distress but she ignored my plea. She returned an hour later and told us to take him to the spillover area.

“The security men were not happy with what was happening and they told us that there are bed spaces for patients.

“They also said the health workers were in the habit of being unruly to patients and referring them to the spill area, a private ward where patients are billed heavily,” she said.

How our sad journey began

Recalling how the journey to LUTH started, Nenelyn said, on the morning of Sunday, April 19, her father woke up hale and hearty. But by 9.am, after his morning devotion, they heard him scream.

“My mother, who at the time was in the kitchen, rushed into their bedroom and screamed for help. We met him looking a bit disoriented and weak.

“My father told us that he suddenly discovered he could not breathe well, but that he managed to drag himself into the bathroom to pour water on his head.

“My mother and my younger brother, Victor, took him outside and after checking his blood pressure, discovered it was quite high. He was hypertensive and diabetic but despite that, he had been quite healthy.

“We were outside for quite a long time and when he started dozing off, I told him to go inside to have a proper rest.

“As soon as he got into the living room, he had the same experience again. I quickly called a relative, who is a retired matron, to come and check him out.

“The woman checked his BP and sugar level and told us they were unusually high.

“Later, as he stood up to use the restroom, he started gasping for air and was rushed to a specialist hospital on Ijede Road in Ikorodu. He was admitted immediately and placed on oxygen.

A new twist

Recounting further, Nenelyn said by Wednesday, her father’s condition had improved drastically and he was taken off oxygen. She said he was meant to be discharged but that this blood sugar spiked again, making the doctor advise against letting him go home.

“On Thursday morning, which was my birthday, he woke up early to pray for me, after which I left to freshen up at home. Less than an hour after I got home, I got a call from my brother saying the doctor wanted to refer him to LUTH, so that he could be seen by a cardiologist,” Nenelyn narrated.

The lady said she returned immediately to the hospital, only to find him already in an ambulance and on oxygen.

Inhuman treatment at LUTH

“We got to LUTH that night and were treated shabbily by the health workers. The female doctor on duty was so inpatient and not ready to listen to anything we had to say.

“Even her attitude towards my sick father was disheartening. She would ask him a question and as he made an effort to answer, she would move on to another one. At a point, he just closed his tired eyes and was just nodding to her questions.

“I cried and pleaded with the doctor to attend to him but she was unmoved. By 9.pm, the ambulance driver told us the oxygen had finished. We moved my father into our car and he hurriedly left for a refill.

Nenelyn said by 11.pm, doctor Omotara came out and told them to take him for an X-ray, emphasising that the result would determine if he would get treated at LUTH.

She said, “At the radiology department, we were told the X-ray result would be ready by 6.am.

“But by 2.am, I went to the X-ray room and was shocked to realise that the result was ready and I was not notified, despite leaving my number with them. I ran back with it and appealed to one of the security men to call the doctor.

“She came out and after studying the result, started yelling at me, at the same time calling on the security men to send us out of the premises that my father was a suspected COVID-19 case. We were shocked at her outburst.

“I was angry and asked her when an X-ray became a parameter for determining those infected by COVID-19. I told her that I am aware LUTH is among the listed isolation centres in Lagos and that she should alert the infectious disease unit so that a test can be carried out on my father.

“I also pleaded with her to isolate us in a room, so that my father could get the basic treatment needed to stabilise him.

Journey to IDH

“The doctor insisted that we leave for the Infectious Disease Hospital, Yaba and that as long as we were outside the emergency ward, LUTH will not be responsible for anything that happens to us.

“I kept insisting that my father does not have COVID-19 because no member of my family has left the family house since the lockdown commenced. We stocked up the house and received no visitor,” she said.

Nenelyn said they got to the IDH at about 3.am and met a doctor that calmly attended to them and went through the referral letter, X-ray results and also examined her father.

“The doctor said it is simply a medical case. He was quite upset and said even if it was what they suspected, there are accepted standard safety procedures that should be adopted to treat such a patient while awaiting a confirmatory result.

“The doctor accused LUTH of always turning patients away on the pretext of having COVID-19 because they don’t want to attend to them.

“He said an X-ray is not a standard determinant of a confirmed COVID-19 case and that it can’t substitute an ideal COVID-19 test.”

COVID-19 test stalled in IDH by lack of PPE, test kits

“I appealed to him to help facilitate a COVID-19 test for my father. He assured me it will be done as soon as the laboratory open by 5.am.

“By 4.30 am, the ambulance driver had to leave again to refill his depleted oxygen tank at the Ikeja General Hospital. Luckily, my father was stable by the time the oxygen was turned off.

“By 9.am, we took my father to the lab but was told that there was no Personal Protective Equipment and test kits available. We returned by 11.am and were told the same thing.

“As I stood under the shade of a tree crying, another doctor walked up to me to find out what the problem was. After listening and examining my father, he said he required urgent medical attention.

“He went to the laboratory and instructed them to carry out a COVID-19 test on my father immediately. He then wrote another referral for us to go to the Federal Medical Centre, Ebute Meta.

Rejected by FMC, chased out from Military Hospital for lack of COVID-19 test result

Nenelyn said at the FMC, they were not even allowed to drive in as the ambulance was turned back at the gate.

“They said there was no bed space in the male ward. I pleaded with them to treat him in the ambulance pending when we can get a bed space, but they refused and told us to take him to the Military Hospital, Yaba.

“At the Military hospital, we were chased away by the armed guards, who insisted on seeing a COVID-19 test result before we can be allowed into the premises.

“At a point, the ambulance driver joined to plead with them but they were adamant. They ordered us to leave or else, there will be consequences. We had to return my father to IDH, which was on the same road.

“At the IDH, we saw the doctor that referred us to FMC and explained the outcome of our visits to the two hospitals.

“He then directed some nurses to put my father in a room and instructed them to commence treatment pending when the COVID-19 result comes out.

“The nurses were aloof and showed no form of empathy towards my father. One of them just pointed at the bed and told us to put him there.

“As soon as he laid down, he started gasping for air. I rushed outside to tell the nurses that he needs to be put on oxygen.

“They became angry and told me not to teach them their job. They also said until they finish sharing the rice they brought for them, they will not attend to him.

“We kept pleading but they ignored us. I had to go looking for the doctor that admitted him but was told he was attending to patients in the isolation ward. He later sent another doctor to the room before the nurses started attending to my father.

“As he was being placed on oxygen, I and my brother were driven out of the room by the nurses. After waiting for a while, we left for home at about 4 pm.

A death too painful

Nenelyn said they had just reached home when his brother got a call from a doctor at the IDH that my father had passed on.

“I felt drained and angry at the same time. My knee buckled and I sat on the ground. Whatever was left of my hope in the health sector just fizzled. It was more painful knowing my father believed he would be fine once taken to any of these government hospitals.

“His corpse was later transferred to the Ikorodu General Hospital morgue with an instruction that it should not be kept among COVID-19 corpses, pending when the test comes out,” she said.

Two weeks later, the family was thrown into another bout of mourning when the COVID-19 result came out negative.

“For a moment after I got the news, everything went bleak. I can’t describe the calamity that befell my family. My father died out of mere assumption from LUTH management. The hospital could have saved his life by taking precaution while treating him since they were in doubt.

“LUTH is complicit in the death of my father. Denying someone with an underlying medical condition treatment is like committing murder.

“I expected that since he was suspected to have the virus, we would have been quarantined or told to self-isolate. But no, no one reached out to us or bothered to know where we live. Let us assume we have the virus, we could have been spreading it,” she said.

Nenelyn said her father has been laid to rest but that the “pain of the loss runs skin deep as “they are sadly reminded of the love and sunshine he epitomises.”