The incident started on Saturday 26th of September, 2015 when my mother returned to Safe Hands Medical Center located at 65, Old Ojo road, Lagos – Nigeria to have her uterus removed.
She had gone to the same hospital a week earlier to complain of blood spots and her Doctor, Innocent Ozeigbe Okoawo without running any type of diagnostic test advised her that the only option to regaining her quality of life was for her to allow him perform a total hysterectomy. His reason was that her uterus is likely infected hence the cause of the bleeding.
After the initial consultation, my mother had sadly returned home completely distraught and panicky for her life, hoping the blood spot she was experiencing would cease. She prayed but with the blood spot persisting for a few days, she thought it was wise to follow her Doctor’s recommendation – after all, he had been her Doctor for a few years now and she had total confidence in his medical qualification and experience with treating other women as an OBGYN.
Thus, she returned to the said hospital on Saturday 26th September 2015.
When I was informed over the phone, I got there as soon as I could and found out my mother had already been convinced by the doctor that she needed the surgery and her life depended on it. I was very worried when I learned that the Doctor had convinced her to remove her uterus so, I question him and after about an hour in the doctor’s office, he couldn’t logically and scientifically explain the need to remove my mother’s uterus. I asked if he had run any test and had a diagnosis for the surgery and found out he hadn’t. He had not performed any test and he did not have any diagnosis. He was going with his gut feelings of what he considered the best course of action for his patient (my mother). I tried dissuading him from performing the surgery pending a concrete diagnosis to no avail; my mother had trusted him with her life and seeing that the doctor was not going to back down, I felt very helpless. I have never felt this helpless my entire life.
While in the doctor’s office, he had sexually harassed me and I had to run out of his office.
In a further bid to flaunt his ego, so that I would agree to his sexual advances, he asked me to enter the operating room with him to observe the surgery. He even recommended that I video the entire surgery. He bragged about successfully performing the same type of surgery on countless women and had even ventured into the realm of plastic surgery of which he was not certified to perform.
While recording my mother’s surgery, the sight of all the blood gushing out of my mother nauseated me and I felt very sick to my stomach. When I could no longer stand the sight of the blood, I ran out of the operating room to throw up. He was not perturbed but rather insisted that the Nurse assisting him should continue with the recording. I left him and the nurse recording the procedure in the operating room to catch my breathe since the whole ordeal had made me sick.
Right after my mother’s surgery, Dr. Okoawo dashed out of the hospital and went about his business as usual, like nothing had happened. Unfortunately, a few minutes after he left, my mother started bleeding profusely and uncontrollably and every attempt to get Dr Okoawo to come back to the hospital and check on his patient proved abortive.
I watched helplessly as my mother bled from 4pm to 12am. I have never been this traumatized my entire life. I would never wish this upon my worst enemy. It was a horrific experience. I cried uncontrollably just watching my mother lay there helplessly like she did not matter. The Doctor knew my Mother was a staunch member of Jehova’s Witness and their doctrine forbids acceptance of any type of blood transfusion. The doctor is also a member of Jehova’s Witness which was why my mother had trusted him with taking care of her medically. She felt he would know the doctrines more than any other doctor outside the faith.
Dr. Okoawo casually strolled back to the hospital sometime around past midnight only to determine that the cause of my mother’s bleeding was due to his negligence. He had failed to stitch her up properly during her surgery, probably because he was busy trying to make an impression on me and capturing everything on my video camera.
He then wheeled her back into the operating room for a second round of surgery in a bid to stitch her up. My mother kept losing more blood during this second surgery. She bled to death on his operating table and sadly died during the early hours of Tuesday 29th of September, 2015. My life will never remain the same again after I watched my mother die at the hands of the person she trusted the most. The one person she thought knew about her religious beliefs and would protect her life.
I decided to take the matter up, having seen the medical malpractice that unfolded right before my eyes that led to my mother’s sad demise. I kept wondering how many other people had lost their lives in the hands of this “butcher” doctor.
I reported the incident to the Lagos State Health Facilitating and Monitoring Agency (HEFAMAA); the government agency that is in charge of improving the healthcare services delivery system in Lagos State, Nigeria and a subsidiary of the Lagos State Ministry of Health
The agency immediately swung into action, and discovered that Dr Innocent Okoawo is not a Gynecologist as he had been parading himself. HEFAMAA also found him liable for breach of procedure & conduct. In fact, the acting Executive Secretary to the Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Mabel Adjekughele disclosed to me that all the information gathered during their investigation of Dr Innocent Okoawo and Safe Hands Hospital should warrant the closure of the hospital for breach of conduct. Despite all their findings, Safe Hands Hospital and Dr Okoawo is still in full operation as we speak, a sad reality of the corruption that President Mohammadu Buhari is trying diligently to end. What other reason, would this man have for still operating a hospital when he has obviously broken the laws – performing surgery outside of his specialization; as an OBGYN and a Plastic Surgeon. It just makes you wonder how many innocent people still go to him for treatment and possible surgery. This is a very sad situation that a country as advanced as Nigeria can condone this type of behavior and malpractice and this is the 21st century?
The State CID who’s currently investigating the case has requested for my mother’s case note but HEFAMAA is withholding those documents and all effort to have them release the case notes of their findings which directly implicates Dr Innocent Okoawo has proved to be a herculean task. They are still in possession of the documents and have refused to released the files to the Police department to do their job which is to arrest this man for malpractice and the murder of my beloved mother. I am in shambles and words cannot describe this pain that I feel. No, no words can describe it.
The Acting secretary, Dr Mabel Adjekughele called me a week ago to ask me to stop the police investigation, and stop the autopsy which she had earlier advised us to do in order to determine the true cause of my mother’s death and possibly give us a fighting chance against this “phony” doctor. The only thing that comes to mind is that money must have exchanged hands and it is devastating to see how people chose money over human lives! How can my mother’s life be quantified? How is it worth all the money in the bank? Please tell me!
Both the Pathologists and the Police are in need of this case file which HEFAMAA has in their possession and have refused to release. This Organization was setup to protect the common man who is helpless in the hands of these merciless doctors.
Honestly, my goal in this whole fight is to prevent another innocent life from dying in the hands of this doctor who has been parading himself as a Gynecologist, knowing fully well that he has been veering off into areas where his medical certification/qualification does not allow him
To make this whole matter worse, Dr. Innocent Okoawo, went ahead to cash the N250,000 cheque that my mother had written out to him prior to her surgery, which had led to her death even though, my Mother had a standing order with her bank to not release any funds greater than N50,000 without calling her to obtain authorization. It is obvious that Dr. Innocent Okoawo used his influence and possibly connived with some member(s) of staff internal to the bank to make the cash available despite the standing order left by my deceased mother.
I know the Police would be interested in knowing who within the bank, assisted Dr. Okoawo in cashing my mother’s check. ~ Patience Ilozue (TV Host, Talking Fingers)
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