Man Drags FMC Makurdi to Court over Wife’s Death

A middle-aged man, Mr. Benjamin Ugba Uyeh, has dragged the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Makurdi, and three of its doctors to court over negligence of duty that led to the death of his wife, late Mrs. Sabina Iber Uyeh.

In a pre-action notice, the Principal Partner, A’ande and Associates, Mr. Polycap A’ande, said that apart from suing the FMC and the doctors, his client was also demanding N50 million as medical damages.

Uyeh also insisted that disciplinary actions should be meted on the doctors who allegedly caused the death of his wife, who was the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the FMC before her untimely death in October, 2019.

The letter which was titled “Complaint Of Medical Negligence Against Dr. Marcellinus Abu, Dr. Jerome Ohene And Dr. Hussein Micah and Pre-action Notice” was addressed to the Chief Medical Director, (CMD), Dr. Peteru Inunduu.

The letter also copied the Registrar, Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria in the state, as well as the state chapter of the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA) for their “information and necessary action.”

Uyeh also alleged that while the operation by the doctors left his wife with perforated stomach, one of the doctors dismissed the result of the scan that indicated that his wife’s gut was perforated.

A’ande said: “The negligent act and the subsequent actions and inactions of Dr. Micah, our client’s wife was subjected to unimagined pain for three months until her eventual death.

“It is appalling that the abdominal scan result in conjunction with all the complications that manifested after the surgery, which ought to have prompted a medical practitioner with the requisite skill expected of his professional calling to have acted promptly by taking our client’s wife immediately into surgery and not shrug it off like Dr. Micah did, which inevitably led to her death.

“These acts of negligence, the perforation of her gut to the dismissal of the result of the abdominal scan and the inaction afterwards, is condemnable and must be sanctioned to forestall its reoccurrence. Moreover, our client who has lost his beloved wife and the mother of his daughter as a result of the doctors’ negligence cannot be made to further incur financial loses while the perpetrators go about their usual business.

“Consequently, we demand firstly, that disciplinary actions be meted out on all the doctors and they be made to appear before a disciplinary tribunal of the Medical and Dental practitioners.

“Secondly, that the sum of Fifty million Naira (N50 million) be paid to our client as damages for the medical negligence which eventually led to the death of his wife, Sabine Iber Uyeh.”