Medicine as a noble profession is
accorded so much respect in the society, professionals in this profession are
seen as the messiah after God when it comes to health issues because we expect
a high level of duty of care and skill from them as they are trained for these
purpose but what happens when the last resort for people suffering from one
ailment or the other are faced with the problem of been treated by doctors in
view which often times result in loss of lives.
This write up on medical doctors
in most hospitals in Nigeria is not malicious neither it is to ridicule those
doctors who have dedicated so many years into saving lives in these country but
i am writing based on experience of people very close to me who have lost their
lives because of the negligence of the doctors assigned to them and i think
this must STOP
I am not a medical doctor but i
believe the need to have medical history of each patient before administering
drug on patient is highly important as failure to do these often times results
into loss of lives, relevant authorities have been written in these regard as
they are government hospitals ,we hope they improve and be more detailed
because i am personally not interested in getting a doctors practise
certificate withdrawn but the need to be more detailed because it is a
constitutional right of every Nigerian to live. No one deserves to die before
his/her appointed time because of someone’s mistake.
We don’t have money, yet we
deserve to live, so how do we tackle medical negligence in our society? What is
medical negligence? Rules and regulation guiding medical practise in Nigeria
Medical negligence is defined as
a direct legal action taken by a patient who falls victim to the negligent act
of a medical practitioner, this can be on what the medical practitioner did and
what he failed to do when he was expected to act. As we all know there is code
of conduct for every profession and medical profession is not left out and they
are expected to adhere strictly by these codes of conduct. A medical doctor is
to provide the patient with suitable support and medical attention required and
must be done in the best interest of the patient to treat, diagnosis the
individual ,failure to do this at the appropriate time will result into medical
negligence which is actionable per se.
There are plethora of decided
cases in Nigeria, in the supreme court case of CAPTAIN C.T OLOWU V. THE NIGERIA
NAVY in this case one Mrs Joy Bassey ,an obstetric patient who registered with
the military hospital for antenatal went into labour ,on getting to the
hospital she met the nurses, the plaintiff in these case a doctor was informed
when he resumed duty of the patient’s health but paid little or no attention to
it until it deteriorate the next morning after she has bleed for several hours,
he then referred her to military hospital Yaba, where she was operated on. She
lost the baby and it was also confirmed that she will not be able to have any
child again as the negligent act of the doctor to treat her on time caused
these. The doctor was found guilty of medical negligence from court martial to
the Supreme Court. He was relieved of his duty as a medical doctor,
Nigeria medical and dental
council is the body that regulate code of conduct of medical practitioners in Nigeria,
if truly you want a change report all issues of medical negligent to them.
Thank you.
Oyenike Alliyu-Adebiyi LLB(hon)BL
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