A year after a woman’s death, the hospital still has her body.
Mrs. Janet Nwaosu’s body has been held at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH) in Enugu for the past year, despite allegations that doctors there murdered her. Meanwhile, hospital administration has repeatedly refused to allow her family access to the body.
Remember that on October 18, 2022, The PUNCH reported that the family of Romanus Nwaosu, of Amaeta village in Mgbowo, Awgu Local Government of Area Enugu State, had accused one Dr. Chibuoke and a nurse of murdering their mother, Mrs. Janet, when she was a patient at the UNTH.
The family alleged that the doctor (identified as Chibuoke) and the nurse injected their mother with a medication that resulted in her death less than five minutes later.
The family claims the accused medical staff were not the ones responsible for the dead patient’s care at the time of the fatal medication injection.
After more than a year, the Chief Medical Director of the university hospital, Dr. Obinna Onodugo, still refuses to release Janet’s body because, in his words, one of her children “had maliciously broken a glass window in the hospital” after their mother’s alleged murder.
Meanwhile, our correspondent learned that, despite the family’s payment of all fees, the CMD had reportedly issued an order prohibiting any family member from viewing the mother’s body for the last calendar year.
Yesterday, Miss Augustina Nwaosu, the decedent’s daughter, told our correspondent that the hospital administration has been dragging the relatives of the decedent from one police formation to another. Before the alleged killing, Augustina had been the one taking care of her mother.
She complained that CMD Dr. Onodugo had shown no sorrow for her mother’s murder and had instead asked the police to arrest her for filing a complaint and seeking justice.
Augustina told the story of how the CMD had been using the police to harass and threaten her family for the past year, threatening to make their lives a living hell if they complained about the incident. She pleaded with the people of Nigeria and human rights organisations to save her family.
She said that Dr. Jide Uzoigwe, the former chairman of the Association of Resident Doctors at UNTH, had promised her family that the hospital would continue to obstruct their attempts at every level of police investigation into the matter no matter how much money they spent.
She claimed that UNTH leaders have been known to bribe police officers conducting investigations when they realise that the authorities aren’t buying their version of events, all while arresting family members with officers from a different unit.
