PUNCH
Chairman of the Association of Nigerian Private Medical Practitioners, Lagos State chapter, Dr Makinde Akinlemibola, tells EMMANUEL OJO about the controversy surrounding the missing intestine of a boy, Adebola Akin-Bright, who died on September 19, 2023
The case of the boy who died after his small intestine reportedly went missing during his treatment involves one of your members whom the Lagos State House of Assembly ad-hoc committee investigating the case directed the police to arrest. What is your position on the issue?
Well, it happened to one of our members of the Association of Nigerian Private Medical Practitioners. The patient, may his soul rest in peace, and his family used the same hospital, Obitoks, for a long time. The patient had a problem earlier this year (March 6, 2023) and was taken to Obitoks. Before getting there, he was said to have taken some medications somewhere, probably not a hospital, and then they found out through a scan done that there was an abscess (pocket of pus) around the area of the appendix, which was operated and it relieved the boy of the abscess and in the process, they couldn’t remove the appendix because of the abscess. In medical parlance, we all know what that is. So, it (the appendix) had to be left alone because an attempt to remove it can even cause more damage but it was treated confirmatively, that is, with medication and so on, and luckily the boy got better and was discharged.
Three months later, the boy came back with abdominal pain. Eventually, all things were done and it was discovered that he had intestinal obstruction, which also necessitated intervention, that is surgery. He was opened up. Along the line, it was found out that the appendix which had been very difficult to remove at that time was eventually removed and another part of the intestine was also removed, that is the duodenum. The duodenum is a very small length of the whole intestine. Part of it was removed because it was gangrenous (decaying due to lack of blood flow). So, those are part of the things that took place. Then, of course, they had to put the ends of the small intestine together with the hope that it would be healed.
Was the family well-informed of all of the procedures?
All these were explained to the mother and eventually, about five days after the surgery. They noticed that most likely, the intestine must have broken down; that is the anastomosis – that is, putting together the ends of the viable walls must have broken down and that is what we refer to as fistula. So, some particles were coming through the wound. So, in view of that, the doctor eventually explained to the mother that they may have to call another doctor from Lagos State University Teaching Hospital to come and review and also do whatever it was that needed to be done, but along that line, while they were doing that, the mother chose to go to LASUTH rather than having a doctor from LASUTH come to them. So, the boy was discharged and referred to LASUTH. They got to LASUTH, and for whatever reason that they had chosen, they didn’t intervene surgically for the first 28 days that the boy was there. Eventually, they said that the boy was operated on and then, the explanation was given to the mother. One thing led to the other and there was an outcry of having a loss of the intestine and as it were, we were not there, so, we cannot say what really transpired. All we know is that at the private hospital from where he was transferred, there is evidence that the intestine was there, and even viable.
