Date Published: 05/11/10

Doctors Damage Child’s Brain During Operation  

Doctors at the Apapa General Hospital, Lagos, Nigeria,  have been asked to explain how they slashed a baby’s brain during a caesarian section (CS) performed on the mother.
P.M.NEWS gathered that the doctors inadvertently damaged the baby’s brain after slicing his head with the knife used during the operation.
Following the damage, the baby which ought to be a source of joy to his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Rosemary Sunday Oji, is now a sorry sight, as he has been rendered incapacitated.
Angered by the action of the doctors, the parents have written to the Lagos State Health Services Commission, urging it to investigate the fate that befell their two-year old baby.
The petitioners claimed that the team of doctors who operated the mother during her delivery gave her baby a serious cut at the back of his head that damaged his brain.
Presently, the baby, named Samuel ,cannot cry, talk, crawl or do anything associated with a child’s development.
A test conducted by Dr. F.A. Oke of the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Yaba, Lagos showed that the baby suffered brain damage during the caesarian section performed on the mother.
According to Dr. Oke, “the victim suffers from abnormal record, consistent with partial complex seizure disorder capable of potentially delayed cerebral maturation in view of the frequent seizure.”
Narrating how her baby’s brain was damaged, the 32-year old mother of the victim, Rosemary, said when she got pregnant, she registered for antenatal care at Apapa General Hospital.
“I delivered my first child at the hospital through CS,” she disclosed.
The embittered woman said she kept all the antenatal dates and was periodically asked to do ultra sound scan to ascertain the well being of mother and child.
She said when the expected date of delivery (EDD) was approaching, the doctors told him that she will deliver through CS.
She identified members of the surgical team as Drs. Idowu, Awosika, Tijani and Sanusi, adding that two days after the operation, Dr. Idowu approached her husband and told him that there was a slight problem.
”He told my husband that the baby had a slight cut that will heal later and did not allow us to see the wound. I was later discharged.
“Due to the constant crying of the baby, my husband decided to open the wound and behold it was a deep cut and we rushed back to the hospital where we stayed for six weeks without getting any serious attention,” she narrated.
It was while they were in the hospital that the mother observed that the child was not growing as expected of a new born. All efforts to get the doctors to ascertain what went wrong failed.

—PM News