Police Order Management Of Nigerian Teaching Hospital, UNTH To Negotiate With Aggrieved Family Over Woman’s Remains Illegally Held In Facility For 19 Months

The Nigeria Police Force has directed the management of the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH) Enugu to negotiate a settlement with the family of the late Mrs Janet Nwaosu, whom the hospital allegedly killed through negligence.

 

The hospital has held onto the corpse of Mrs Nwaosu for 19 months because one of the relations of the deceased broke a window at the facility over the death, which the family blamed on negligence on the part of health workers.

 

SaharaReporters gathered that the Assistant Inspector General of Police in charge of Force Criminal Investigation Department, Enugu Annex, AIG Kwazhi Bzigu Dali‎, directed the Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Dr Obinna Onodugo to resolve the matter internally or he would take the matter to court.

 

According to security sources, the AIG indicted the hospital management for seizing the corpse without any court order and despite complaints from the affected family that the deceased was killed by staff members of the hospital.

It was gathered that on March 20, during an interview session with all the parties, the AIG Kwazhi Bzigu Dali‎ lambasted the CMD, insisting that he was the cause of issue and should be held responsible for the fallout.

 

SaharaReporters reports that it is now 19 months since UNTH Enugu seized the corpse of the late Mrs Nwaosu.

 

According to family members, the most painful part of the tragic story is that the hospital management has denied them access to the body.

 

SaharaReporters had reported that the family of the late Nwaosu of Amaeta village in Mgbowo, Awgu local government area of the state accused one Dr Chibuoke and a nurse of killing their mother on October 18, 2022.

 

The family alleged that the said doctor (Chibuoke) and the nurse injected their mother with a drug that killed her less than five minutes after injection despite that they were not health personnel assigned to take care of her at the hospital.

 

However, SaharaReporters learnt that a year and seven months later, the UNTH Chief Medical Director, Onodugo, insisted on keeping the body at the hospital.

 

He had also allegedly ordered that no member of the family should be allowed to see the corpse, SaharaReporters has learnt.

 

Miss Augustina Nwaosu, daughter of the deceased, who was taking care of her before her death, lamented that instead of showing remorse for the alleged killing of her mother, the Chief Medical Director had been threatening her family for demanding justice.

 

Narrating the events of the past 19 months, she commended AIG Dali‎ for standing for justice despite the pressure from the hospital to pervert the course of justice.

 

Augustina noted that though the CMD had openly threatened to make life miserable for them for daring to complain about the incident, the police AIG had compelled him to negotiate with her family.

 

“As it stands, our family has demanded that the hospital should foot the expenses of the burial of our mother after close to two years her corpse was illegally seized because we have spent everything we would have used for her burial in running around.

 

"The hospital had been dragging us around various police departments and formations until this AIG Dali‎ came in and insisted on doing the right thing," she explained.

 

She recalled that a doctor in the hospital once boasted that UNTH management would spend money to frustrate every police investigation into the matter.

 

SaharaReporters had reported Augustina’s account of how her mother died.

 

She insisted that all her family wants is justice for her mother.