Lagos panel summons LASUTH doctor over patient’s death

The Lagos State Judicial Panel on Restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuses and Other Matters has issued a summons for the appearance of a doctor simply identified as Dr Adewunmi of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) in Ikeja.

Chairman of the Panel, Justice Doris Okuwobi, ordered the medical practitioner to appear before the panel on September 14 to answer some questions in relation to the petition filed by the late Gabriel Ayoola’s family.

At Tuesday’s proceedings, Grace Aiyedungbe, a sister to the late Gabriel, testified that LASUTH claimed he died of complications from COVID-19 and not the gunshot wound for which he was being treated.

She decried that all efforts by the family to get the autopsy report and death certificate from LASUTH to ascertain the true cause of his death proved abortive.

“When I got to the hospital, he was coughing seriously,” Grace told the panel.

“I spoke with one doctor who said that the reason he was coughing was that when he was unconscious, he was being fed through the nostrils.

“And when he woke up, he was trying to clear his throat and that was the reason for the cough; that it was not something serious and they would handle it. That was what the doctor explained.”

After listening to the testimony of the petitioner, Justice Okuwobi said, “Leave is hereby granted the petitioner to field a third witness, an expert.

“Further hearing in the petition is adjourned till September 14, 2021. Summons shall issue to Dr Adewunmi of LASUTH, Ikeja to attend proceedings at the next sitting of the panel.”

Grace had testified before the panel that her brother was a victim of an extrajudicial killing by some officers attached to the Ojodu Police Station.

The panel heard that the deceased was hit by a bullet while the police were trying to disperse protesters who came out in the morning of October 21, 2020, a day after the Lekki shooting incident.

Grace said she got the information that her brother had been shot on social media and the family later traced him to the hospital where he was receiving treatment after been rescued by a Good Samaritan, one Jude Balogun.

Gabriel was later referred to LASUTH in Ikeja where he died on November 12 – three weeks after he was hit by a bullet. (Channels TV)