By Adedoyin Falolu
A couple, Barr. Gbenga Owodolu and his wife, Mrs Oluwabukola Owodolu has explained why they demanded for N1bn compensation as damages from the management of the Elizade University, Ilara Mokin, Ondo State, over the death of their daughter, Temitope Owodulu, at the institution’s medical facility.
The parents who stated their reasons in a letter written through their lawyer, Femi Emmanuel Emodamori, said their daughter, a 300-level nursing student, died as a result of the negligence of health workers at the facility.
They stated that their late daughter suffered an asthmatic attack in the early hours of November 16th, 2021 and was admitted to the University Medical Centre facility for treatment.
They explained that their daughter was pronounced dead around 8 am.
The stated that there was no electricity at the Medical Centre at the time Temitope was admitted in for treatment.
According to the letter: “Medical personnel at the Medical Centre reportedly attended to the deceased during the blackout and reportedly lamented that they would be unable to treat the patient using the necessary electrically powered equipment, including the Nebuliser, which is essential for the treatment of acute exacerbation of severe asthma.
“Consequently, according to our brief, the medical personnel asked the deceased to continue using the same Ventolin inhaler she had been applying before her presentation in the Medical Centre.
“Although the deceased was reportedly placed on a drip upon her admission, the nurse attendant thereafter abandoned her for one and half hours during which there was a backflow of blood into the drip from her body. Within the same period, she was coughing consistently, indicating that her respiratory tract was infected. She also vomited and it was her sister who cleaned up the vomit and alerted the doctor in the absence of the nurse attendant.
“Strangely, the doctor was said to be sleeping. Eventually, the same patient that was still healthy enough to engage her sister in humorous and intelligent conversation after the commencement of treatment at the Medical Centre, died in the hand of your medical personnel. If the University medical personnel could not effectively treat or manage the deceased patient, why was she not referred to another facility?
“The University medical personnel never referred the deceased for proper treatment, apparently because they were not even on the ground to observe her properly, to know the point at which ongoing treatment was no longer producing the desired clinical improvements.
“It is a notorious fact that asthma is a preventable, treatable and reversible medical condition. You would therefore agree with us that it is quite unusual in medical practice for an asthmatic patient who walked into the hospital herself to die in the hands of a medical doctor.”
Besides the demand for N1bn compensation, the parents are asking for a formal acceptance and apology for the medical negligence that caused the death of their daughter.
They are demanding for immortalisation of their daughter by properly equipping the University Medical Centre and naming it after the deceased as well as an undertaking to not harass, intimidate or persecute Miss Opeyemi Owodolu, a sister of the deceased in the University.
They threatened to institute legal actions against the institution if their demands are not complied with within seven days from the receipt of the letter.
Reacting to the claim by the Management of Elizade University in a release titled
“Our hearts are broken” said
“the entire community of Elizade University was thrown into mourning with the tragic loss, to the cold hands of death, of our beloved student, Miss Temitayo Owodolu.
Temitayo was a 300 level student of the University. She sadly passed away at our Medical Centre as a result of an acute asthmatic attack.
The Registrar, Mr Omololu Adegbenro said this happened in such profoundly sad circumstances and it is ordinarily the preference of the University to respect the privacy of Temitayo’s family by not commenting publicly on the events surrounding her unfortunate demise.
The Registrar said the statement released by the University was necessitated by the introduction into the public space of painful and clearly malicious misinformation in this regard, makes it imperative that the University issues these short comments, to set the record straight.
He said the Health facility of the institution tried all it can to revive temitayo but sadly,she passed on the following morning.
The Registrar noted that the University place high value on each of its students and would never joke particularly, in the area of health.
Mr Adegbenro denied the insinuation that power outage caused the unfortunate incident saying actions taken by the institution medical personnel would have revived the deceased with or without power supply.
The statement did not however state if the University is ready to pay any damages or not.