Prince Uthman Shodipe, elder brother of the late Secretary of the Lagos State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party, Muis Adediran Shodipe-Dosunmu, believes that the administration of a wrong drug by a doctor and what he termed “vile, deliberate negligence” on the part of another consultant physician could be responsible for his brother’s death.
Adediran Shodipe-Dosunmu died on Wednesday ostensibly from complications arising from COVID-19 infection.
Prince Uthman Shodipe recounted how his late brother was taken to the IDH (Mainland Hospital) at Yaba, after exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19 infection.
Shodipe recounted: “Of his own strength, he walked across the four steep steps that led to Ward C on July 15th. We secured a room as we rallied the staff through ‘nudging’.
“Oxygen tanks were secured; drips and several prescribed antibiotics were procured at the 68th Army Reference Hospital, about 100 meters away from the Mainland Hospital, now called IDH.
“His condition improved in the first few days as he requested for Lucozade, fruits and other energy-strengthening boosters like powdered Complan. All these he sipped through the straw.
“He chatted with inspired contentment. Even as he gasped as power fluctuated and the oxygen supply dropped. He fought hard, praying with hoary, wispy voice, chorusing a faint insistent hallelujah, grappling with that brutal virus that was strangulating his lungs.”
However, according to him, about the ninth day, the doctors introduced Omeprazole injection, which was supposed to heal the esophagus and remove acids from the stomach.
This, he reasoned, marked the turn for the worse for his late brother’s condition, as the drug allegedly impaired his kidney.
“It was one of his children who is a pharmacist that noticed this injurious implication and told the doctors to halt the infusion of the drug immediately.
“But, alas! The damage had been done. His kidney had been impaired. We were directed to do dialysis, to which we promptly agreed,” he added.
He accused one Doctor Ojuroye, the resident nephrologist who he says shuttles between Gbagada and Mainland, of deliberately stalling and “dribbling everyone” instead of coming promptly to attend to his dying brother.
“I called everyone I knew in the upper echelon of Lagos government and their party. From the Permanent Secretary to Commissioner, from party bigwig to family friends –none could bring Dr Ojuroye to my brother’s aid!
“For eight hours, he refused to pick his call. He kept dodging, equivocating, dribbling one as life ebbed and drained from my brother’s body,” he alleged.
He accused Doctor Ojuroye of advancing every possible excuse why he could not come to attend to the dying patient.
“After three days of deliberate, vile and evil negligence, I was advised to take my brother to St Nicholas Hospital in Maryland. As my brother was rolled to the premises in the early morning of Wednesday, it was too late,” he said, adding “Dr Ojuroye, through his indifference and unfathomable malignity, contributed to my brother’s death.”
He also accused those who administered Omeprazole on his brother of being guilty of his death.
“Prince Muis Adediran Shodipe- Dosunmu was a wonderful loving soul imbued with the natural instinct of gregarious largeness.
“He was easily affable, warm, accommodating, glowing with a wide embrace.
“He was the archetypal politician who slaved selflessly for the Peoples Democratic Party with a staunch, steadfast vision. As the State Secretary, he was the great unifier, the solemn man of peace, appealing to all sides of the divide even when the party was fraught with feud.
“Muis has fulfilled his course. His journey is made. Like it was said of the Emancipator, now Muis belongs to the ages; reposes in eternal glory in the bosom of the great Nazarene,” he lamented.