Cases
of negligence and other medical lapses caused by doctors and other
healthcare providers resulting in avoidable deaths or permanent injuries
have been described as actionable offences by a London-based consultant
physician on Family Health, Dr. Chukwudi Ukpaka.
Ukpaka, the
founder of Crystalife Care, a health based Non-Governmental
Organisation, which trains healthcare providers and engages in medical
outreaches to communities, called for strict sanctions against erring
health practitioners to serve as deterrent to others.
Lapses,
negligence and other unethical medical practices leading to avoidable
deaths or deformities, Ukpaka argued, negates the dictates of clinical
governance, which encourages professionalism among health professionals.
Clinical
governance also mandates them to do the right thing when taking care of
their patients and to take responsibility of the consequences of their
actions, if they pose any health risk.
While hinting that the
Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, will on Tuesday, August 19,
preside over the Clinical Governance Summit in Abuja, he regretted that
in many cases it seems: “Patients pay to be killed through misdiagnosis,
wrong medications and other careless mistakes during treatment.”
Speaking
on the rising cases of kidney failures, Ukpaka warned against use of
bleaching creams saying: “It contains mercury and other heavy metals
that enter the body through the skin, seep into the bloodstream and
travels to the kidney and does not go out through urine. After a period
of time, they accumulate and break down the kidney. A lot of people who
require dialysis were caused by their use of bleaching creams.”
He
also noted that prolonged use of gentamycin causes deafness and kidney
failure for people whose kidneys are not very strong, saying the
symptoms may take up to one or two year to show.
Ukpaka averred
that fibroid cases no longer require surgery due to the risk of bleeding
and infections. Rather he said there is a new drug that shrinks it till
it becomes small and falls off, but he was quick to add that it costs
about N200, 000 and doctors know the drug.
He warned against the
use of Chloroquine, which according to him has been banned and
criminalised in some countries, because it causes blindness which may
take up to five years after use before manifestation.