Hospital detains mother, baby over N95,000

 By Juliana Francis

A nursing mother, Blessing Bassey, and her baby have been forced to sleep on the floor of a hospital located in the Shasha area of Lagos State for seven months owing to inability to offset medical bills of N95,000.

A human rights activist, Mrs. Esther Ogwu, who is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and founder of Esther Child Rights Foundation, has taken up the matter, seeking a solution to the woman’s predicament. She said: “The girl ‘put to bed’ in March through a Cesarean Section and was charged N350,000.

They negotiated and the hospital accepted to collect N250,000, which she paid N160,000, to balance N90,000. The hospital has been holding her captive there since March till date. When the case was reported to Esther Child Rights Foundation we went to Afonka Police Station and they assigned an officer to us, but the owner of the hospital was not arrested.

The question is why did the hospital keep that lady for that long? She’s still in the hospital begging for assistance. She and her baby have been sleeping on the floor of that hospital for about seven months.” According to Blessing, efforts made by her husband, who is a mechanic, to raise the money for the medical bill were abortive.

The husband had also tried other menial jobs just to raise the money, but all efforts proved futile. She said: “In March, when my pregnancy reached seven months, I collapsed. I was rushed to the hospital where I registered, but it didn’t have equipment for CS. I was referred to Mojol Hospital. I was rushed to the hospital that same night and a CS was performed on me to save my life and the baby’s life.

Some days after the CS had been done, I was told that our bill was N300,000, but we paid N100,000 out of it. After that payment, the owner of the hospital said the bill was N350,000 and I told her that it was N300,000 that she told us, but one of our neighbours came to beg her to reduce the money and she reduce it to N250,000. “We were able to pay N155,000 out of the N250,000 and begged her to allow me to go and work, so that we could pay the remaining bill in instalments but she refused.

 

I have been in the hospital since then. I didn’t spend one month on the hospital bed after the CS when I was told to move to the floor. I had to spread my wrapper on the floor so that my baby and I could sleep and that’s where we have been sleeping for the past seven months.” Blessing added that she didn’t have any money and had to beg visitors to the patients in the hospital for money to feed herself and the baby. She said: “My husband is a mechanic and when it was not functioning for him, he went into bricklaying and took ill. I want the hospital to allow me to go and work so that I can offset the bill.”

The Administrative Officer of the hospital, Salami Akindayo, said that previous patients had been released on the grounds of paying the hospital bills in instalments, but defaulted. He said: “She is not our patient but she was rushed down to our hospital in an emergency and we tried and saved her life before even asking for money. After the delivery was done, she was unconscious for five days before eventually coming around.

When she was given the bill, the MD had to reduce it for them so that they could be able to pay. We have released patients in the past like that when they promised to pay and they wouldn’t pay.

So we decided that any patient that didn’t pay the hospital bill, will not be discharged. The hospital has written letters to some organisations to ask if they could assist them and we’re still waiting for their responses. I have presented her matter to the Ohaneze group and they promised to get back to us.”