Nigerian novelist and public intellectual, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, has accused Euracare Hospital in Lagos of medical negligence following the death of her 21-month-old son, Nkanu Nnamdi.
Nkanu, one of Adichie’s twin boys, died on Wednesday after suffering complications during a medical procedure at the hospital. In a statement that surfaced on social media on Saturday, the author said her son’s death was avoidable and blamed what she described as “criminal negligence” by medical staff at Euracare.
According to Adichie, the family had travelled to Lagos for the Christmas holidays when the toddler developed symptoms that initially appeared to be a mild cold but later worsened into a serious infection. She said Nkanu was first admitted to Atlantis Hospital and arrangements were made for him to be flown to the United States on January 7, accompanied by travelling doctors, with a specialist team at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore on standby.
Adichie said the US medical team requested that a lumbar puncture and MRI be conducted, while doctors in Nigeria opted to insert a central line ahead of the planned flight. Atlantis Hospital subsequently referred the family to Euracare to carry out the procedures.
She said her son was sedated on the morning of January 6 to keep him still during the MRI and central line insertion.
“I was waiting just outside the theater. I saw people, including Dr M, rushing into the theater and immediately knew something had happened,” Adichie recounted.
She said she was later told that the anaesthesiologist had administered an excessive dose of propofol, causing the child to become unresponsive.
“A short time later, Dr M came out and told me Nkanu had been given too much propofol by the anesthesiologist, had become unresponsive and was quickly resuscitated,” she said.
“But suddenly Nkanu was on a ventilator, he was intubated and placed in the ICU. The next thing I heard was that he had seizures. Cardiac arrest. All these had never happened before. Some hours later, Nkanu was gone.”
Adichie further alleged that her son was not properly monitored after the sedative was administered.
“It turns out that Nkanu was never monitored after being given too much propofol. The anesthesiologist had just casually carried Nkanu on his shoulder to the theater, so nobody knows when exactly Nkanu became unresponsive,” she said.
She accused the anaesthesiologist involved of being “criminally negligent, fatally casual and careless with the precious life of a child,” and claimed the family later learned of two previous incidents in which the same doctor had allegedly overdosed children.
Adichie questioned why Euracare Hospital continued to allow the doctor to practise, insisting that such an incident “must never happen to another child”.
Read more news on www.newdailyprime.news
