…They were negligent – Family
…We were not, we even donated blood – Hospital
By Adesina Wahab
The family of Mrs Akubo Lovelyn John and the management of Gynescope Specialist Hospital, Lagos are now at loggerheads over the death of the woman some hours after giving birth at the health facility.
The John Family is accusing the medical personnel in the hospital of negligent in the handling of the woman’s case and even referring her to another medical facility when they saw that her condition was getting out of hand.
But the management of the hospital, through Prof. Jude Okohue, who spoke in a phone chat, denied the claim, saying they took all necessary steps and that even two staff members donated blood to save her life.
Briefing newsmen in Ikeja, Lagos on Tuesday, the husband of the deceased, Mr Justice John, said the sad and avoidable incident occurred in the early hours of Thursday, 4th December 2025.
“My wife and I had been married for barely one year. My wife and I registered for antenatal care at the Hospital in the 13th week of her pregnancy and religiously attended until delivery. For this care, we paid Four Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira (N450,000), exclusive of confirmatory tests conducted at independent facilities on the advice of the Hospital. The antenatal appointments entailed regular tests, ultrasounds (checking fetal heartbeat), and routine pelvic examinations. Both the tests conducted by the hospital and the confirmatory tests conducted at other facilities all returned good. It is pertinent to state that my wife had no underlying illnesses prior to pregnancy or during the gestation period.
“Furthermore, in the third trimester, during one of the antenatal visits, the Consultant and attending doctor, Dr. Joseph Aliyu Yahaya, disclosed the considerable size of the baby. I raised concerns regarding safe delivery options and the possibility of an elective Caesarean Section (CS) owing to the fetal size. However, this was dismissed by the Consultant, whose continuous assurances formed the basis of our confidence and professional trust.
“On Monday, 1st December 2025, my wife began experiencing mild contractions. On Tuesday, 2nd December2025, we arrived at the Hospital where the Medical Officer on Duty (“the M.O.”), Dr. Chukwuebuka Igbokwe, examined her and confirmed she was 2cm dilated. Consequently, she was admitted. By the morning of Wednesday, 3rd December 2025, she was moved into the labour ward, having dilated to 5cm. The Consultant Gynaecologist, Dr. Yahaya, induced labour by artificially rupturing the amniotic membranes. My wife went into labour, and I was present the entire time.”
John added that while his wife delivered via Spontaneous Vaginal Delivery (SVD) and paying nearly N1.2 million, the baby weighed 4.2kg—a size medical experts consider to be fetal macrosomia (larger than average for gestational age).
He added that shortly after, the wife told him she was experiencing an internal flow of liquid and she started bleeding.
“After this second procedure, my wife looked lifeless, pale, and unconscious for hours, while the bleeding continued unabated. The Consultant admitted she was having internal bleeding yet took no steps to refer us to another facility or procure an expert surgeon, despite the dire situation. There was a clear 15-hour window between the delivery of our baby and my wife’s eventual passing. A total of 5 pints of blood were purposelessly infused into my wife without first identifying the source of the bleeding hence the bleeding persisted. It appeared the blood was flowing out as fast as it was being infused.”
John, a lawyer, added that it took several hours before the management of the hospital decided to refer his wife to a government hospital on Lagos Island.
He explained that while they were taking the wife from the third floor to the ground floor, she fell from the stretchers and demanded that the close circuit camera footage of that day be made public.
He called on the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria, the Lagos State government and others to probe the issue, as he would not want his wife to die in vain.
Also speaking, Mrs Uchenna Akingbade, the Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, Lagos, said every citizen has a right to life and that apart from institutional support of the association for the deceased’s husband, the NBA would want a probe of the incident to unravel what actually happened.
The Chairman of the Law Reform Committee of Lagos NBA, Dr Tolu Aderemi, also called for a thorough investigation of the incident.
An uncle of the deceased, High Chief Raymond Ohaekeleme, said her niece deserves justice.
Prof. Okohue, while explaining what happened, said, ” It is not true that she was not referred on time. I am medical doctor of nearly 30 years and I have competent and capable hands working in the hospital. I cannot tell you all that happened but it was within a few hours and the situation was not related to the pregnancy itself.
“Before you refer a patient, you have to stabilize him or her and that was what we did. You just don’t carry a patient and send him or her somewhere else without stabilizing the patient. It is not true that it took hours after she was stabilized before we decided to refer her.
“She delivered around mid day and everything went on well until about 8pm when we observed something. She even took pepper soup brought to her by a relative. Then things just changed and the blood transfusion started around 6pm and she took five pints of blood and two members of staff in the hospital donated a pint each to assist her. Among my staff is a man who worked at an international oil firm for about 30 years as a medical doctor among others. She started bleeding from the anus. That was strange.
” We didn’t waste time in doing what was needful. The family has even asked a pathologist at LASUTH to conduct autopsy on her and I am sure the results would have been given the family now. We welcome coroner’s inquest into the matter. We have nothing to hide and we didn’t commit any infraction,” Okohue said.
He added that Lovelyn did not fall when being taken down on a stretcher, but when she said she wanted to defecate and she was told to do so on the bed, but that she insisted on going to the toilet herself and she was promptly raised up.
Okohue said after the incident, he went to visit the family and was surprised at the new turn of events and calls being made by the family.
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