Imo panel: How doctors abandoned patients to die

In what could be described as a betrayal of their Hippocratic oath, doctors in lmo State University Teaching Hospital Orlu are alleged to be abandoning patients to die.

It was alleged that the mortuary in the tertiary health institution is overwhelming with corpses such that government is planning mass burial. According to a report of the panel set up by government to investigate the institution, the patients were allegedly left to their fate because they refused to patronise private clinics owned by the doctors.

The panel’s report alleged that many of the doctors use the hospital as their liaison office from where they allegedly poach patients to their clinics. It was also alleged that patients who don’t have money to attend the private clinics are abandoned to die. “Because of this anomaly, almost 80 percent of patients who go to IMSUTH end up dying.

That is why the mortuary is filled to the brim and mass burial is contemplated’, the report indicated”, the report said. Angered by the development, the government dismissed the chief medical director and also ordered his prosecution. Among the alleged fraud in the hospital is the padding of salary from N147m paid in December 2019 to N236m in January 2020 when Governor Hope Uzodinma assumed office.

Also, a top official of the hospital allegedly awarded himself monthly salary of N1.6m contrary to extant laws while he allegedly caused to disappear N10m monthly IGR. Imo State Commissioner for information and Strategy, Chief Declan Emelumba, announced to newsmen in Owerri that government took the measures to save the hospital. He disclosed that government was also going to punish all staff members indicted in the report. Vanguard