Senate President Godswill Akpabio has affirmed that he is a victim of medical neglect as his grandchild died of such in a government-owned hospital.
Akpabio spoke on Friday on the floor of the upper legislative chamber during the screening of Tunji Alausa, President Bola Tinubu’s ministerial nominee.
Alausa, a nephrologist, was grilled on how the nation’s healthcare system can be improved and fake drugs eliminated in pharmaceutical stores.
After Alausa from Lagos State was done with proffering solutions to the country’s healthcare crisis, Akpabio said he is a victim of medical neglect.
“Every other person has been a victim of medical neglect,” he said.
The senate president said his first grandchild passed away at a federal medical centre owing to a haemorrhage caused by medical neglect of a medical doctor.
“My first grandchild in 2019 in a federal medical centre died through bleeding. He was receiving drip and it was tissued in the night — there was no help,” he said.
“He was looking for water to drink. He rolled on the floor outside and entered the early morning dew.”
Akpabio said his grandchild was later found the next morning.
“By that time, he had gone into a coma,” he said.
Akpabio said when he got to the medical centre, he “struggled” with his physician to revive him but to no avail.
“I struggled. They went and brought a defibrillator to attempt to revive the heart, but it did not work,” he said.
The senate president said when he inquired when the defibrillator was last used, he was told the machine “stopped working eight years ago”.
“I used my hand and struggled with my personal physician, I could not revive him. I had to close his eyes and put him in the mortuary,” he said.
The 32-year-old man was his nephew but culturally regarded as his grandchild.
Akpabio said Tinubu’s government must be “a corrective administration” to tackle the failures in the nation’s health sector.
“Health is wealth. There is no way a country can be wealthy when its people are not healthy,” he added.
