Everyone is Altered: Why Nigerian Ladies Risk Everything for Breast, Butt Surgeries
referred to (LUTH) without an informative referral letter. The accompanying note from the General Hospital, Odan, stated that the patient developed orthopnoea 16 hours after the surgical procedure. The informative referral letter from Dr Adepoju, who performed the surgery, was provided on the fourth day of presentation at LUTH upon my insistence and persistent request. The said referral letter dated, January 7, 2019, is attached herewith and marked as ‘Exhibit A.’
The petition added, “She was noted to have significant deterioration of the vital signs before referral to LUTH for intensive care management on account of progressively worsening symptoms. Details of the surgical intervention subsequently received from Dr Adepoju (Exhibit A) showed that she had liposuction of the anterior abdomen, back, flanks, and arms with fat transfer to the buttocks and hips. The surgery was done under spinal anaesthesia. The tumescent technique was used where three litres of fluid were infused into the patient and five litres of fluid were aspirated. She had two pints of blood transfused before presentation on account of anaemia.
“The account given about the patient further had it that there was no previous history of similar presentation in past surgery of myomectomy done three years before the liposuction and fat grafting. It was revealed that on the second day after the surgery, she was noticed to have persistent foul-smelling discharge from all the surgical sites.”
The hospital added that upon admission into LUTH, the first surgical debridement performed on the deceased on January 10, 2019, revealed extensive sloughing, with foulsmelling discharge from Nneka’s debrided hips and purulent discharges from puncture wounds on the anterior abdominal wall. It added that after the surgery, there was no improvement in the patient’s clinical state, hence, the need to perform a second surgery on her and that after the second surgery, the clinical state of the victim improved till the 28th day of admission when her vital signs deteriorated.
The LUTH petition posited that the victim developed multiple organ failure of cardiac, respiratory (Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome), and renal failures and had a cardiac arrest on the 31st day of admission. The victim was certified dead around 9 am on February 3, 2019, after cardio-pulmonary resuscitation was unsuccessful.
However, LUTH decided to take the position claiming Dr. Adepoju had in a series of misleading and incorrect public statements on social media absolved herself from liability in the management of the patient and put the blame on LUTH and its personnel, adding, “She (Adepoju) accused the medical team at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital of being responsible for the death of Miss Nneka Onwuzuligbo.
“She claimed this was due to wrongful positioning of the patient, stopping all antibiotics resulting in mortality. She stated in her video that liposuction and fat grafting is a new area of surgery, and doctors at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital are ignorant of post-operative management of the condition.
“Dr. Adepoju instigated the relations of the patient and the public against the Lagos University Teaching Hospital and its doctors by saying that the plastic surgeons and doctors at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital should be asked about the death of Miss Onwuzuligbo Nneka.”
LUTH also alleged that Dr. Adepoju performed the surgery on Onwuzuligbo in December 2018, four months before she was fully registered as a medical practitioner. While insisting that she’s a qualified cosmetic surgeon and had undergone the necessary training, LUTH claimed that she didn’t undergo a residency training programme. Neither is she registered by the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria.
Consequently, the FCCPC arraigned Dr. Adepoju before Justice Mohammed Liman of the Federal High Court, Lagos, and was subsequently suspended from the medical profession in Nigeria following multiple malpractices and botched surgeries in her clinic.
Quackery is still a major bane of the medical profession, and Dr. Adepoju may have been debarred from practising. Still, it would not stop many young ladies aspiring and angling for plastic surgeons’ services, whether qualified or not. Where and how does the government wade in to nip this fatal practice in the bud?