Twelve-year-old Adebola Akin-Bright whose small intestine went missing during surgery in the hospital has died.
A close member of the family confirmed the tragedy to BBC News Pidgin, adding that Adebola suffered from internal bleeding.
He was subsequently rushed to the intensive care unit of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) but he did not make it.
Adebola had been battling to survive after multiple surgeries were performed on him and it was confirmed that his small intestine was missing.
His mother, Abiodun Deborah had decried the non-intervention of the Lagos State Government, under the leadership of Babajide Sanwo-Olu and the Nigerian Medical Association in the mysterious disappearance of the small intestine of her 12-year-old son while receiving treatment at LASUTH.
Deborah who spoke to SaharaReporters earlier in September narrated how her son, Adebola, was referred to LASUTH from a private hospital, Obitoks Medical Centre situated at Ileepo in the Alimosho Local Government Area of the state on June 17 following a complication from surgery to correct intestinal obstruction.
According to the mother, her son was said to have a ruptured appendix and he had surgery at Obitoks Medical Centre in February 2023.
“After the surgery, he was fine until June when he kept saying he had pain in the stomach. This made us go back to the hospital and the doctor said he had intestinal obstruction and he underwent another surgery,” the mother told SaharaReporters.
She revealed further more than seven days after her son had the second surgery, they noticed that he was still draining bilious fluid.
“We went back to the private hospital and the Chief Medical Doctor told us the boy would undergo another surgery and it will be with the help of a professor from Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH.
“This was why we decided to move to LASUTH since the professor is from there so that they can have total management,” she said.
She added the management of LASUTH told them the boy should not undergo another surgery immediately but they kept nursing him.
She continued: “It was when there was a burst in his abdomen after spending almost a month at LASUTH that they carried out the surgery. It was after the surgery they told me that my boy was without his small intestine.”
Deborah claimed that neither the management of LASUTH nor Obitoks Medical Centre provided an explanation as to the whereabouts of his son’s intestine.
“They (LASUTH and Obitoks Medical Centre) are both shifting blame. And the state government and Nigerian Medical Association have been silent on the matter despite my plea for their intervention on this matter,” she said.