Edo hospital denies complicity in death of twin babies

The management of a Benin-based medical facility, the Med-Vical Medical Centre, has denied the allegations of medical negligence, secrecy and incompetence in the handling of the pre-term twin babies referred from another facility to them.

The twins, who were described as very ill, when they were referred to the medical facility, eventually died while being attended to by the medical officers of Med-Vical Medical Centre, which specialises in paediatric and neonatal intensive care services, and is equipped with state-of-the-art facilities for respiratory care and life support

While the pre-term babies died on separate days at the neonatal intensive care centre, their parents, Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Sylvester, petitioned the Police, calling for a discreet investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of their babies.

In their petition, they accused the hospital of taking one of the babies to the mortuary without informing them.

But the hospital explained that the babies, who were delivered pre-term in another hospital, were subsequently referred from the second private hospital to its facility at about 9 pm on July 9, 2025.

The Consultant Paediatrician/Neonatologist of the hospital, Dr. Enato Gertrude, said she received the babies who were in a critical condition and diagnosed them to have “severe prematurity, severe respiratory distress syndrome, severe neonatal sepsis and perinatal asphyxia.”

Dr. Enato said even though the parents of the babies could not provide 50 per cent of what was needed to start treatment, the hospital nevertheless commenced treatment in a race to save the babies.

She said that the parents were counselled, informed, and their consent sought and obtained on every step taken to treat the babies.

Dr. Enato said the first twin died after eight days of being admitted to the facility, while the second one died after three weeks.

According to her, “I wasn’t there at the delivery. I don’t know what transpired. I don’t know everything that happened until they got to our facility, which was several hours after the children were born, because they came into our facility very ill.

“When the children came, we diagnosed them and put the babies on the machine and started treatment. There is a minimum deposit that is supposed to be paid. The babies needed tubbing surfactants and caffeine citrate, which are expensive. They are not even readily available over the counter.

“They’re actually specially ordered, specially packaged, and cold-chain must be maintained with them. And they are quite expensive. I don’t produce them. I buy them to use for the babies. And it’s supposed to help these babies. So, at this point, the parents didn’t have enough money for all of this. I think the father had less than 50% of the money because he said he couldn’t get the money at that time.

“He came to meet me, and I just told the billing officer not to bother them; let’s attend to these babies first, collect what he had. So, I think then he had just 250,000 or so for each baby. But we were not focusing on the money. We just needed to save the lives of the babies, of which we continued the care.

“We placed both babies on the machine, and we continued to give antibiotics and oxygen therapy. And at a point, we noticed that the respiratory distress was not getting better, and we informed the parents.

“While on admission, we noticed the babies had thrombocytopenia (low platelets) and immediately we told the parents to get what they call platelets. Due to the severe sepsis, we also requested a blood culture.

“At a point on day eight, we noticed that the thrombocytopenia for baby two was not getting better despite all that we had done. A diagnosis of severe neonatal sepsis with multiple organ dysfunction and disseminated intravascular coagulation was made.

“So, we called the parents and counselled them that we needed to put the baby on the ventilator for complete life support. But at this time, the baby was bleeding from thrombocytopenia, and we carried the parents along. They saw what happened. Despite all our resuscitation efforts for the baby, the baby succumbed to the illness. The father wasn’t happy after we explained everything to him. It was quite painful at that time for everybody.” Dr. Enato explained

She further explained that following the passing of the first twin, the father became hostile and was adequately counselled, but it was difficult to get him to calm down.

“We even suggested referring the second twin to UBTH, but he quickly declined and pleaded for treatment to continue, as they had nowhere else they preferred to go.

“We did a lot for these babies to ensure that the second baby continued to live, but two weeks after the passing of the first baby, we noticed bleeding continued for the second one despite blood transfusion with platelet administration, and the baby needed a mechanical ventilator (life support).

“We counselled the mother and told the mother that at this point that the baby had a poor prognosis. Chances of survival were slim, and she said yes, that we should continue to do everything she has faith that the baby will survive.

“On Wednesday, we saw a little bit of improvement, but it declined again, and the baby had to be continued on mechanical ventilator life support, but the baby succumbed to the illness.” She added

According to Dr. Enato, the parents were contacted, and the mother, who came to see the corpse of the child, left and did not return.

“Due to the delay in claiming the corpse after 12 hours of demise and after several attempts to reach the father to no avail, we decided to take the corpse to the mortuary. We never denied the parents access to their child’s corpse.” Enato stated.

The hospital further added that it was committed to transparency and accountability in its operations, adding that “at Med Vical Medical Centre, patient safety and well-being are top priorities as we strive to provide the highest quality care.”

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