Umahi: I lost my father to hospital’s negligence

The immediate past governor of Ebonyi State, David Umahi, says he lost his father over the doctors’ negligence at a private hospital.

Umahi, a senator representing Ebonyi South and a minister-designate, said this during the screening of a ministerial nominee from Kano State, Dr Mariya Mahmoud Bunkure, at the plenary in Abuja on Monday, August 7, 2023.

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

“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 had a very bad experience of this. My father had surgery in Enugu and he was seen by a very good surgeon.

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“When the same problem reoccurred, he went back to the hospital, but 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 the doctor and nurses at the hospital didn’t attend to his father, adding: “These clinics, most of the time, have a very slim number of workers and so you find out that there are very competing interests.

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

The former governor further stated that he implemented a policy that prevented doctors working in government hospitals from operating private medical facilities to avoid a conflict of interest during his tenure in Ebonyi State.

The lawmaker, therefore, called for urgent measures to tackle medical negligence in hospitals across the country.

The Star