The management of the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital has accused a professor of medicine on its staff of conniving to conceal from his colleagues vital information on a suspected patient of COVID-19, who died at the hospital last week. The federal facility said the suspected case had been on self-isolation on arrival to Ilorin …
The federal facility said the suspected case had been on self-isolation on arrival to Ilorin prior to his presentation at the Accident and Emergency, A&E, Unit of the hospital “on the advice of the Professor who brought him.”
It said the information of self-isolation “was concealed from the frontline medical personnel at first contact in the A&E, an act that the hospital management considered highly unethical.”
The death of the 57-year-old UK returnee generated controversies among Kwara residents and even social media users.
The state government had denied that it was a COVID-19 related case, adding that all the six samples of suspected cases taken in the state have been negative.
Rafiu Ajakaye, the spokesperson of the Kwara State Technical Committee on COVID-19, had said in a statement in Ilorin: “The Kwara State Technical Committee on COVID-19 wishes to clarify that the state has not recorded any confirmed case of COVID-19.
“As of now, all the six samples tested from Kwara State have returned negative.”
However, in the reaction of its hospital’s medical advisory committee, which was first circulated online on Sunday, the hospital said the deceased’s travel history was concealed and his case presented as food poisoning.
The hospital’s statement was signed by the committee chairman, Olorogun Emerhor, and the chief medical director, Yusuf Abdullah.
The hospital said: “A 57-year-old male was brought into the Accident and Emergency Department on the night of Wednesday, April 1, in the company of one of the hospital’s Professor of Internal Medicine (a specialist in infectious diseases); with history of abdominal discomfort/stooling, following ingestion of rotten pineapples.
“He was then admitted and managed as a case of food poisoning’. The patient later died in the early hours of the following day, April 2.”
