Taiwo Adeniran Adeogun, a Nigerian woman based in the USA, is currently facing a challenging period as she mourns the recent loss of her beloved mother, 64-year-old Mrs. Enitan Ekundayo Adeogun. The loss is particularly distressing for Taiwo, given her efforts and financial investment in ensuring her mother received what she believed to be avoidable and high-quality medical care.
Notably, she’s pointing an accusing finger at Crystal Specialist Hospital, based in Akowonjo area of Lagos, alleging “extortion, poor care, not doing due diligence, and taking my mum to LASUTH in their ambulance with an empty oxygen bottle, thereby causing her to arrive LASUTH as dead on arrival BID.”
She is also accusing the hospital of delaying her in their facility long enough for her bill to rise before finally suggesting that she saw a Respiratory Specialist. This, she argued on the basis of the hospital’s claim that they gave her 23 bottles of oxygen.
“If indeed their claim that she took 23 bottles of oxygen – part of the reason they gave for their humongous bill – was true; then it means they knew she had respiratory issue early enough. Why then did they keep her in their facility for a full week, when the right thing to do was to have referred her to a respiratory specialist?”Her conclusion therefore, is that they did all these because they realised she lived abroad and could pay more money, something she considered unethical and inhuman for a health facility.
On top of this, Taiwo Adeogun said the hospital staff members were also rather curt and unfriendly each time she sought an explanation over her mum’s health or the bills over the phone; she also said was denied results of the tests they purportedly conducted and even refused to issue a death certificate after LASUTH confirmed that she arrived their facility as a BID.
According to Taiwo Adeniran Adeogun, her mum had just arrived from vacation in Scotland, where she went to spend time with her sister who lived there. While she was there, she said she was hale and hearty and no complaint whatsoever, as “the weather was good, she didn’t go through any stress and rested very well.
“However, when she got back to Nigeria first week of December, she started complaining of tiredness; people also said she looked lean, but we put that to change of environment. Early January, a friend who live in the US but who was on a visit to Nigeria, called to tell me my mum was not feeling fine and needed to be taken to a hospital. Quickly, we arranged and she was taken to a nearby government hospital, I think a primary healthcare facility in Kola. She lived in Alakuko. There, they said her sugar level was high, gave her first aid but said they were not able to handle her condition. They suggested Jefis Hospital. She arrived Jefis on a Tuesday (can’t remember the exact date now) and by as at Saturday of the same week, I saw through a video call that she was having tremor, as her hands were shaking. I also noticed that the doctors at Jefis were never available each time I called to follow up on her progress. The usual reply was ‘ MD is not around’. Finally, when I was able to speak with the doctor on a Friday, the moment I said, “I am mama’s daughter…’ she just interrupted me with ‘What do you want to know, what do you want to know..?’ And I was like, ‘that’s unprofessional, you don’t know me, I don’t know you, and I believe I have the right to ask about my mum’s health.’ I then told her that I just wanted to know what her illness was; what they were treating her for… And the next thing, she just hung up the phone. All further attempts to get her to speak with me was abortive, so we concluded to take my mum away from there.
“I requested for her to be discharged. They brought one crazy bill, N139,000, after we had paid an initial deposit of N75,000. We argued back and forth over the bill but in order not delay on mum’s treatment, I made payment and she left the hospital.
“We tried Ahmaddiya Hospital but the doctor there said they were not able to take care of her and suggested LUTH or LASUTH. At LASUTH, the personnel attending to them said there was no bed. I was monitoring proceedings on my phone all the while, asking questions; and then I heard one of the personnel asking ‘ Is she in the UK?’ And I was like ‘what has that go to do with you?’ I then appealed to her that these people who brought her were just neighbours and that even if we had to go and purchase a bed to put on the floor for her to get proper treatment, I was ready. But rather than respond, she just handed the phone and walked away.
“Seeing that I was worried about her condition, a neighbour suggested Crystal Specialist Hospital in Akowonjo. He said it might be expensive but it’s a specialist hospital and they should be able to handle her condition. So we moved her.
At Crystal Specialist Hospital, they requested that we pay N8,000 for card and N300,000 as deposit. When they named the huge deposit money, I asked if she was undergoing a surgery. But I paid anyway, because her wellbeing was more precious to me than the money, and sent them the receipt for confirmation, because they said without that, they would not admit her.
“After making the payment, they put her on oxygen, then they put her on drip. The person with her sent me the images. The next morning, a Sunday, they said she needed to go for an MRI of the head and EEG, but that it would be done on Monday, because the radiologist didn’t work on Sundays.
“They said they had to take her in an ambulance because that would make them attend to her swiftly. I said okay; then they brought an estimate of N127, 000 or so, I paid; later they came back to say the ambulance was N13,000, not N10,000; we paid; and on Monday, she was taken for the EEG and MRI. Then we awaited the results. As at Wednesday, no result and we were like what! But they said one of the tests took like three days to get its result. By Thursday, there was still nothing; I got through to one of the doctors and they said something like, ‘Oh she’s responding to treatment… That Thursday, I think, I did a video call; she was sitting and eating amala. And I was like, ‘Oh, thank God.’ I also joked that she liked catfish pepper-soup. And then by Saturday afternoon, they called to say that one of the doctors wanted to speak with me. They said, and I’m quoting him directly: ‘In other not to deny her proper treatment, they wanted to refer her to a respiratory specialist.’
“And I wondered: Did sending her to a respiratory specialist occur to them overnight? The fact that they put her on oxygen already suggested that she was having respiratory issue, so why keep her for that long. Originally, she was taken there because of her sugar level; so once they had regulated that, the next step, maybe by the second or third day, should have been to refer her to a respiratory specialist. But because of their own selfish interest; probably because we were paying every bill they brought, they felt ‘these people have money, let’s keep her for some time more; and once we get our own bill, we can refer her to a specialist.’ I guess they finally decided to refer her to a respiratory specialist because they felt it was getting out of hand.
“Long story short, I called for their bill and to my greatest surprise, they gave me a bill of N1, 073,990.00. So if we deducted the N300,000, I still had to pay a balance of over N700,000.”
Was there a breakdown?
“They said the room she was occupying was N25,000 per night; but even that for five days, is about N125,000, let’s even say N150,000; the MRI and EGG, I already paid for; so what kind of treatment cost that much? I asked what they did that amounted to such huge bill, and they said ‘services.’ I asked what kind of services? They said oxygen. They said they gave her 23 bottles of oxygen. I said for what? What was her ailment that she had to consume that many bottles of oxygen? They also put laboratory observation or experiment; and I asked ‘what laboratory experiment were you doing that we didn’t know of? Because I remember that each time I wanted to speak to her doctor, he was not always available. Besides, since I was her daughter and the one paying, I expect you to let me know each new step you were taking.’ And then it’s not as if she was on kidney dialysis or stuff. I got on the phone with maybe the accountant or cashier; we argued back and forth; she’d tell me to hold on, make some consultations and then get back to me. I told them I could not even pay N500,000. I told them this was the third hospital she was coming and it was not as if they were discharging her to go home; she was going to another hospital where I would have to cough out more money.
“I asked why they even had to put her on so much oxygen; and she said I should have asked the doctor that. She then said oxygen is not a treatment, and I told her I am not an illiterate. I said why would you give somebody 23 bottles of oxygen and still keep the person with you?
“Next, they said they needed to move her in an ambulance because of the oxygen she was taking. They said she would be going with two tanks of oxygen at N25,000 each, and that the ambulance fee was N80,000, totalling N130,000. This was aside the over N1million bill and I was like how? When you people took her for MRI and EEG, we paid N13,000 for ambulance, how come the same ambulance is now N80,000? After series of arguments, they said okay, they would not collect the ambulance money and that they would give us a discount of 10 per cent on the bill, but I insisted that 10 per cent would not do it for me. Eventually, we resolved to N500,000, making over N800,000 with the initial N300,000 deposit. By that time, it was late, so we resolved to move her in the morning.”
Brought in dead
“However, my sister woke me up later, telling me that they were resuscitating my mum; I asked why and all she could say was that they needed to move her immediately because her condition was getting worse. So we arranged and sent the money in the morning and she was moved to LASUTH. But when they got to LASUTH, the personnel there said she was brought in dead. They also told us that the oxygen bottle she was on was empty.
“How that happened I cannot fathom. Initially when they told me she had been admitted after they filed all her information, I was excited and even heaved a sigh of relief. I even went about trying to get ready for church because it was a Sunday morning. I got on the phone with a friend of mum who told me she was at Crystal Hospital and I was telling her she had been moved to LASUTH. Suddenly, I noticed that I had a lot of missed calls from my sister; I paused her to call my sister, and then she was just crying. Alarmed, I asked what happened and she said mum had passed away.
“I really could not understand how somebody who had high blood sugar could just die like that. It’s not even as if she had a history of diabetes; the only condition I knew she was managing was High Blood Pressure, which was why I was insistent on her getting the right medical treatment, so that it didn’t result to stroke.”
My allegations
“My allegations against Crystal Specialist Hospital are extortion, poor care, and that they didn’t do due diligence on the patient. I don’t even know how I will categorise their taking a patient to LASUTH in their ambulance without oxygen. I am calling them out for negligence and for extorting from me because I live abroad and they felt they could make more money from me. And that they are living on past glory. This action may not bring my mum back, but I believe it will push them back from such act and someone else would not fall into such situation.
“Even the girl we got to stay with her at the hospital told us that the nurses, because they knew somebody was with her, rarely came to check up on her or do the regular things nurses are supposed to do. There was a time the girl had to go out to get some things and the nurses were telling some visitors who came to visit my mum that they could not leave until the girl came back! As if that was not their job.”
