By Christian Njoku
Dr. Austin Ushie, Medical Superintendent of General Hospital Obanliku, has disclosed that he was ready to face any panel or medical board set aside to investigate the cause of death of a middle aged woman in the facility.
Ushie made the assertion in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, (NAN), on Monday in Calabar.
It would be recalled that on Tuesday night, Oct. 17, a woman in labour had died in the facility located in Sankwala, Obanliku Local Government Area of Cross River while trying to deliver a baby.
The death which sparked up an uproar in the area had also seen different videos by residents on social media on the issue.
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Reacting to some of the videos, the Medical Superintendent said the deceased who passed on the same day she came to the hospital during delivery was never in the facility for three to four days, wriggling in pains as the videos claimed.
According to him, the patient was not a first-timer, she had been delivering by herself in the past.
“After a long day of surgeries, I closed at about 7p.m. deciding to continue the remaining surgeries on Thursday, Oct. 19 and went home to rest.
“The nurses on their part did not see any reason to alert me because the process was going on fine but after the head of the baby appeared from the deceased vulva, she fell back to the couch and started gasping.
“Before they knew what was happening, the patient was dead, they did not even get the chance to call or alert me, the only doctor in the hospital,” he said.
He said he did not even see the patient physically as she came for her ante natal when he was carrying out surgeries in the theatre
He called on anyone or organisation that wants to come and verify the hospital’s claims to come and do so adding that he had been the only doctor in the facility in the last four years and has tried to put things in place.
He maintained that the hospital was almost collapsing when he came in 2018 but he ensured that the place was revived by carrying out massive sensitisation in churches and renovations which brought life back to the facility.
“I know where this hospital was and where it is today in terms of patients attendance, revenue, number of surgeries, renovations and out patients activities, people can come and verify.
“In the last four to five years, the patients I have seen as a single doctor is more than the total number of patients that have come to the hospital in the last 10 years.
“The total number of surgeries that I have carried out in the hospital is more than has ever been done in the hospital since its inception.”
