Connect with us

Letters

The dangers of our today’s private hospitals

Published

on

OpinionNigeria Bankole2

OpinionNigeria-Bankole1

The joy of every parents, most especially the mothers, the ones who have to bear the pain of carrying another breathing human inside of them for a complete nine months, isn’t just to have a safe delivery, but to be able to hold their baby or babies as the case maybe, at the end of the day. Now imagine the surprise that will be registered on the face of a mother who already knows the status of her pregnancy, a twin, but was given just one baby after child birth.

Forgetting to pick up your clothes from the laundry guy is an understandable mistake; not remembering to polish your shoes before getting off to work as a result of you having to go late, is also understandable. But what is in the least not understandable is how a DOCTOR will say he mistakenly threw away a newly born baby’s placenta.

According to research, there are about seven hundred and fifty thousand private hospitals in in the country. That includes those who set up tiny clinics with insufficient medical equipments and refer to them as hospitals. One thing most of us know about some of these hospitals is that they charge a very outrageous fees, something else we don’t know about them is that they are fraud. This is actually not the first time that we, or rather I am hearing about some of the activities of these kinds of hospitals, but this particular one is sitting right under my nose.

Advertisement

Mercy Bankole, on finding out that she was pregnant, told her husband who instantly was excited about it and asked her to register for anti-natal. She proceeded to Kings Care Hospital Ltd, a private hospital located in Kubwa Satellite town. Few weeks into her pregnancy, she conducted a scan test which shows that she’s to have a twin. Three months later she went back for another test, same report was given to her. Five, six and eight months test was done and in all these time, the report of her twin pregnancy was never in doubt nor questioned. They never had any reason whatsoever to worry until the day of delivery.

2 1

According to the husband, Mr Owolabi Bankole, immediately his wife was taking into the labour room, they began sending him on goose chase, asking him to go buy hand gloves, toilet papers, anything at all that will make him leave the hospital vicinity for hours. They also told him where he MUST go to buy this stuff. On return, after the third errand, he demanded to see his wife and the babies as they told him she has delivered. But to his greatest surprise they said it’s just a “baby” and not “babies”. Mr Bankole who knew that his wife’s pregnancy is for a set of twin and not a single baby, confronted the doctor, requested for the placenta so they can actually verify the number of babies that was delivered but the doctor said he unfortunately gave it to the cleaner to throw away. When the cleaner was questioned by Mr Bankole, she said no such thing was given to her and that it will make no sense for her to be in possession of a placenta that belongs to another family let alone throwing it away.

Now according to my source, the doctor refused to give them the lab result of the last scan test they did just to have a way of carrying out his plan without them knowing but, unfortunately for him, he never knew that they had done more than one test previously, in the same hospital and that the lab scientist gave them results of those test.

Advertisement

Mr Bankole is seeking for justice and from what I have heard, the hospital in general and the doctor in particular, will be sued to court in no distance time.

There have been many cases of these kinds of atrocities. Hospitals where babies as well as baby placentas are sold in the market place like food commodity. Committing murder without fear of Gods wraths. All in the name of money.

The dangers of today private hospitals lies in either losing your pregnant wife through unnecessary operation on child-birth, or your baby after delivery. If you are Mr Bankole, what will you do to remedy the situation?

Advertisement

Jeff Okoroafor is a leading member of a new generation of civic advocates for government accountability and democratic change in Nigeria. The Citizen Affairs Initiative is a citizen-driven governance initiative that enhances public awareness on critical issues of service quality in Nigeria. It encourages citizens to proactively seek higher standards from governments and service providers and further establishes new discussions in communities about the standards that citizens should expect and deserve from those they have given their mandates. Jeff is the Managing Director of SetFron Limited, a multimedia development company that is focused on creative and results-driven web, mobile app, and ERP software solutions. He is the co-founder of the African Youths Advancement and Support Initiative (AfriYasi), a non-governmental not-for-profit organisation that provides tertiary education scholarship for young people from low-income homes in Nigeria. He is a Fellow of the Young African Leaders Initiative and the United Nations World Summit Awards. A Strategic Team member of the Bring Back Our Girls movement, and a member of the National Technical Committee on the Establishment and Management of Missing Persons Database in Nigeria. Jeff holds a Bachelor and Postgraduate diploma degrees in Computer Science, and a Certificate in Public Administration from Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, GIMPA.

Continue Reading
Advertisement
1 Comment

1 Comment

  1. m88wi

    September 20, 2015 at 11:47 pm

    There is certainly a great deal to find out about this issue.
    I really like all of the points you made.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Facebook

Trending Articles