Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH, yesterday, rejected an allegation of negligence in the death of Mr. Olaleye Adenibuyan, who died at the facility while receiving care from a critical fall.

While commiserating with the family of the deceased, LUTH management explained that the late Adenibuyan, who was admitted unconscious into the facility on January 15, 2024, was attended to at the Emergency Department and stabilised by a team of neurologists and neurosurgeons.

In a statement, the Chairman, of the Medical Advisory Committee, Dr Ayodeji Oluwole said: “In the ICU, his care was coordinated by a team of neurosurgeons, intensivists, and ICU nurses. Throughout his stay in the hospital, the managing team was in direct and constant contact with Mr Adenibuyan’s immediate family, including his wife and son.

“Our records reveal that he was given prompt, appropriate, and professional care for his condition by senior medical professionals.

“In situations when hospital equipment experiences downtime, the hospital policy is for an ambulance and appropriate healthcare professionals to be made available to take the patient to a sister facility for the required procedure to be carried out.

“This was communicated to Mr Adenibuyan’s family when he needed a repeat CT scan. For the records, LUTH has functional imaging facilities including MRI, X-ray, ultrasonography, fluoroscopy, and mammography machines.

“Deployment of equipment such as the intracranial pressure, ICP, and monitors requires consumables such as probes. Such consumables are supplied by private vendors, and the costs are borne by the patient for which they are used. It is these consumables that were required to be made available in this case. The decision on the timing of deployment of the ICP monitor was taken by the Neurosurgeons, with due consideration given to the potential benefits of ICP monitoring versus the potential risks that may arise from placing a foreign body within the brain.”

[Vanguard]