The management of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba, LUTH, has urged the Medical and Dental Practitioners’ Investigation Panel to inve
The management of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba, LUTH, has urged the Medical and Dental Practitioners’ Investigation Panel to investigate the alleged professional misconduct of a Lagos-based cosmetic surgeon and owner of Med Contour Aesthetic Clinic, Dr Anuoluwapo Adepoju, ThePunch is reporting.
The hospital, in a petition dated June 11, 2020, and signed by its Director of Legal Services, O. O. Olajide, accused Adepoju of professional misconduct during a surgery she performed on one Miss Nneka Onwuzuligbo at her facility. According to LUTH, Adepoju had continued to perform surgeries despite the fact that her facility was sealed off by the Lagos State Health Facility Monitoring and Accreditation Agency.
In an affidavit attached to the petition, the hospital alleged that Adepoju referred the late Nneka from her facility to LUTH on January 3, 2019, on the pretext that she was being referred from the General Hospital, Odan, Lagos Island. The victim, according to the affidavit deposed to by a consultant surgeon, Prof. Andrew Ugburo, was presented to LUTH with severe respiratory distress and septicaemia with infected surgical wounds.
The affidavit read in part, “The patient was well until she developed a sudden onset of breathlessness within 24 hours after the said surgical procedure. The breathlessness was progressive and necessitated her being taken immediately to the General Hospital, Odan, from the theatre. There was no reference in the referral note from the General Hospital, Odan, about the details of the type of tumescent fluid that was administered, neither was the volume and the type of anaesthetic used provided. The breathlessness was said to be progressive. During the said two days, the patient received oxygen and intravenous fluids at Med Contour Hospital.
“The patient was referred to (LUTH) without an informative referral letter. The accompanying note from the General Hospital, Odan, stated that the patient developed orthopnoea 16 hours after the surgical procedure. The informative referral letter from Dr Adepoju, who performed the surgery, was provided on the fourth day of presentation at LUTH upon my insistence and persistent request. The said referral letter dated, January 7, 2019, is attached herewith and marked as ‘Exhibit A’.
The hospital added that upon admission into LUTH, the first surgical debridement performed on the deceased on January 10, 2019, revealed extensive sloughing, with foul-smelling discharge from the deceased debrided hips and purulent discharges from puncture wounds on the anterior abdominal wall. It added that after the surgery, there was no improvement in the patient’s clinical state, hence the need to perform a second surgery on her, adding that after the second surgery, the clinical state of the victim improved till the 28th day of admission, when her vital signs deteriorated.
However, LUTH alleged that Adepoju blamed the hospital for the death of the victim. Adepoju further claimed in the video that the patient ‘walked to LUTH by herself’. This is false as the patient was brought to LUTH in an ambulance accompanied by her sister, Quincy Onwuzuligbo, in a state of severe respiratory distress.
“Dr Adepoju instigated the relations of the patient and the public against the Lagos University Teaching Hospital and its doctors by saying that ‘the plastic surgeons and doctors at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital should be asked about the death of Miss Onwuzuligbo Nneka’.”
While urging the panel to investigate the activities of Adepoju, LUTH stated that she obtained full registration as a medical practitioner on April 4, 2019, while she performed surgery on the deceased in December 2018, adding that she claimed to be a cosmetic surgeon without undergoing a residency training programme or being registered by the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria.
Meanwhile, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, on Friday, arraigned Adepoju before Justice Mohammed Liman of the Federal High Court, Lagos, over her services which allegedly resulted in the death of Nneka. Adepoju, alongside her hospital, Med Contour Services Limited, was arraigned for allegedly obstructing the investigation by the FCCPC into the case.
