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.
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