LUTH Doctor Dies After 72-hour Non-Stop Shift

• Kazeem Badmus

A medical doctor at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital LUTH, Idi-Araba, identified as Dr Michael Umoh, has reportedly died after performing a 72-hour surgery without a break at the neurosurgery unit.

OSUN DEFENDER gathered that Umoh died during a church service last Sunday.

He was said to have been on call for 72 hours before arriving home on Sunday morning to get set for church service.

He slumped in the church at about 11 a.m.

READ: Two Doctors Nabbed Over Organ Harvesting In Plateau

The Association of Resident Doctors made this known in a letter dated September 19, addressed to LUTH’s chief medical director.

The doctors accused their senior colleagues of bullying them, giving them stressful call hours without breaks, and not providing feeding and good accommodation.

The letter titled ‘An Appeal By The House Officers Of LUTH’ reads, “We the house officers are in deep grief over the loss of our colleague, a co-House officer (Dr Umoh Michael), who died on September 17, 2023, after having a 72-hour call in the Neurosurgery Unit.

“His roommate attested to the fact that Umoh Michael has barely slept in their apartment over the past week as he was always on call or the day he returns home is around 3 a.m. after surgeries and other activities in the Neurosurgery Unit.”

The letter noted that the doctors “have long-standing challenges since we resumed housemanship here, and one most striking challenge is the bullying we house-manship our senior colleagues, stressful call hours without breaks in between, no call food, no good accommodation.”

They demanded that “house officers who did call the previous day should be allowed either half a day the next day or allowed to resume work by midday the following day” and that “house officers should not be made to work 48 hours at a stretch.”

“The compulsory House check at the beginning of a house job should be free or grossly subsidised for House officers. Our senior colleagues (senior registers and registrars) should make the work environmentally friendly for us; House officers should not do the work of potters, nurses, or patient relatives.”

Reacting, LUTH’s Public Relations Officer (PRO), Omolola Fakeye, said: “It is not true that anybody worked for 72 hours. I have not been briefed about his death. We were at a programme yesterday (Monday), but I will find out; I can’t say anything now. I will check the medical report of what could have happened because anybody can say anything, but the medical report will show to us what actually happened,” he said.