During the screening of ministerial nominees on Friday, August 4, Senate President Godswill Akpabio revealed that his grandchild died of medical neglect in a government hospital.
Akpabio disclosed this after Tunji Alausa, President Bola Tinubu’s ministerial nominee, was screened by lawmakers.
Alausa, a nephrologist, was cross-questioned on how Nigeria’s healthcare system can be improved and fake drugs eliminated in pharmaceutical stores.
After Alausa was done with proffering solutions to the country’s healthcare crisis, Akpabio said he is a victim of medical in a hospital.
Narrating how the painful incident happened in 2019, Akpabio said:
“My first grandchild in 2019 in a federal medical centre died through bleeding. He was receiving drip and it was tussled in the night — there was no help.
“No doctor, no nurse. He bled until he lost 60 percent of his blood and almost going mental, he struggled and fell on the floor.
“He was looking for water to drink. He rolled on the floor outside and entered the early morning dew.”
Akpabio said his grandchild was later found in the dew the following day.
His words:
“By that time, he had gone into a coma. I was on my way to Port Harcourt for the 2019 rally when they called me. I struggled. They went and brought a defibrillator to attempt to revive the heart, but it did not work.
“I used my hand and struggled with my personal physician, I could not revive him. I had to close his eyes and put him in the mortuary. Almost every family has suffered from what is going on in our hospitals.
“The doctor on duty that night had an emergency in his private clinic and he had to abandon the hospital to rush to go and attend to private patients in his private clinic.”
