Umahi: My father died at private hospital due to negligence

David Umahi, the senate deputy majority leader, says he lost his father due to negligence at a private hospital.

Umahi spoke on Monday on the floor of the upper legislative chamber while posing a question to Mairiga Mahmud, a ministerial nominee from Kano, who was being screened for confirmation.

Umahi, who did not disclose the name of the hospital, said his father died at the medical facility because he was left unattended to.

“I’m very concerned about a particular programme in the health sector. This programme is a situation that the medical association has allowed,” he said.

“It’s a situation where you will be a medical doctor in a public institution and you also have your private clinic. There will be a competing interest.

“I have a very bad experience of this. My father had surgery in Enugu and he was seen by a very good surgeon who did a wonderful work and was made alive.

“When the same problem came out again, he went back to the same hospital. The consultant told him to rather come to his clinic.

“Being satisfied with the work of that consultant, he went to his clinic and the consultant did a beautiful work and then put an infusion and went home.

“In the night, there was a reverse — blood was coming into the infusion rather than the water going into the body.”

Umahi said there was nobody to attend to his father, adding that both the doctor and nurses were unavailable.

“These clinics, most of the time, they have a very slim number of workers and so you find out that there is very competing interests,” he said.

“My father died because of the negligence of that private hospital.”

Umahi said when he was governor of Ebonyi, he implemented a policy barring doctors working in government hospitals from operating private medical facilities to avoid a conflict of interest.

He said urgent measures must be put in place to tackle medical negligence in hospitals.

Senate President Godswill Akpabio recounted a similar experience last Friday.

Akpabio said his grandchild died of medical neglect in a government hospital because he was left unattended to by medical personnel on duty.