Poor emergency services dog Abuja FMC

Poor response to emergency cases and medical negligence have continued to bedevil the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Abuja, investigations have shown.

Findings reveal that while the hospital has recorded achievements in infrastructural expansion and adoption of new medical procedures, it has however faced persistent cases of patients and their caregivers lamenting medical negligence and slow response to people in need of emergency services.

Some residents have lamented being turned away at the emergency unit of the hospital when their relatives were in dire need of care to save their lives.

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They alleged that the delay or no response at all has sometimes led to loss of lives as well worsened health outcomes for those affected.

However, the management of the hospital has countered all allegations leveled against the medical centre, stressing that it is not usual for such a hospital that is usually filled to capacity most of the time to have one or two patients with a complaint.

Last weekend, a man was heard in a viral video lamenting that he rushed some accident victims to the accident and emergency unit of the hospital but that the staff were indifferent and slow in attending to them.

He alleged that he had spent 15 minutes but none of the staff members was willing to come out to carry them in to treat them despite the emergency situation.

He said some of the staff said it was not their duty and that they also didn’t have hand gloves to attend to the patients.

The video showed arguments between the good Samaritan and some staff of the emergency unit of the hospital.

A patient with a head injury was seen in a car in front of the emergency unit while other injured victims sat waiting to be attended to by the staff of the emergency unit.

The video also generated a flurry of people narrating their various experiences at the hospital on social media.

Beyond this, in the last few years, there have been similar cases at the hospital. The hospital mortuary is also an area of concern.

Some patients and their families told Daily Trust that the hospital has a habit of rejecting patients. They also said that between last year and this year, they were always told the mortuary was faulty or had no space whenever they took corpses of their relatives there.

Agnes Mathew said her elder sister was rushed to the emergency unit of FMC Abuja last year but the family was told there was no space. She said they were referred to the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital Gwagwalada but that her sister died shortly after they arrived at the facility.

She said her sister might have survived if she had received treatment earlier.

Some cases in recent years

Over the years, patients, their families and eye witnesses have complained about a persistent nonchalant attitude and lack of empathy from staff of the facility to patients.

Some of the cases have led to legal tussles between patients, their families and the hospital.

In 2020, the hospital was in the news for negligence in attending to an accident victim who was rushed there in a tricycle.

The staff were reported to have abandoned the victim till he died.

A witness, Mrs Mary Ikoku, narrated that the staff refused to attend to the victim who was rushed there on July 30, despite pleas until he died.

She said they were instead asked to leave without showing any empathy.

She said she and other people there were further shocked when the staff at the emergency unit still turned away three other patients in need of emergency care within 30 minutes.

The spokesman of the hospital at the time, admitted that the victim was actually brought to the hospital but that they couldn’t admit him due to lack of bed space. He said the hospital referred him to another hospital but those that brought him didn’t take him away till he died.

He said, “It is true that a patient was brought in but we couldn’t admit him because we have run out of bed space. Consequently, we referred them to another hospital. Instead of heading there, they left the patient inside a commercial tricycle and went straight to the police station. Eventually, the patient died.

“They then came back threatening that because we rejected the patient, the hospital management must bury him. As we speak, the committee set up by the medical director has submitted its report. We shall make our position on the issue known soon.”

Another patient, Charles Ogboli, who visited the hospital in 2021 later threatened to sue it over medical negligence by an opthalmologist at the hospital.

He had alleged that the doctor ignored his medical history, neglected doing requisite tests and ignored medical advice from an endocrinologist at the facility, and went ahead to give him treatment that rendered him blind.

A letter from the patient’s lawyers said the opthalmologist acted and engaged in acts of malpractice, professional misconduct and gross negligence that caused their client partial blindness.

They demanded the sum of N500,000,000 from the hospital for the damages to their client.

The hospital however responded that the patient already had poor vision in both eyes and received optimal care at the facility.

In 2022, a former aviation minister, Osita Chidoka, had on Facebook lamented how his brother-in-law died after a visit to FMC, Abuja over ‘chest pain.’

He said the hospital failed to do a thorough investigation on the chest pain before sending the man home, showed no empathy to his wife, and literally abandoned her with the corpse in a car.

He said, “Yesterday, he was at the Federal Medical Centre Jabi with a complaint of chest pain. The Doctor who saw him prescribed painkillers and recommended ECG and other tests. At the Lab, they said it was late in the day and asked them to come back today Saturday. He walked to the car and they drove home. Allowing him to go home was a questionable decision.

“Early hours of this morning about 5 am he suffered, what we suspect, to be a cardiac arrest. My sister rushed him to the same Federal Medical Centre Jabi. A doctor came out, saw him in the car, and pronounced him dead. They gave her a form and told her to take him to the mortuary. Yes, you read right. They told a grieving woman, who was told without any preparation, to take her dead husband to the morgue.

“They did not remove the corpse from the car. Apparently, there is no protocol to receive a patient brought in dead. She was in the car with her dead husband when my uncle, a medical doctor, arrived. I arrived shortly after. She was in the car crying holding her husband in the car park of the hospital. A hospital they have used for years.

“We struggled to get her out of the car before we moved the corpse to the morgue. The hospital did not receive the body formally. No attempt at separating a wife from a corpse. No official record of the review that pronounced him dead. They did not counsel her or even empathise with her.”

Also, the same year, the family and lawyers of one Barrister Ernest Elaigwu had called for  investigation into the cause of his death at FMC, Abuja. He was also admitted to the emergency ward of the hospital.

They had disagreed with the cause of death issued by the hospital and demanded a certificate bearing his true cause of death and release of his body.

Mortuary cases

Jonah Dada took his relative to the mortuary a few months ago and he was told there was no space in the mortuary. He said all efforts and entities failed and they had to move her to another hospital.

Another resident of Abuja who wished to be known by her first name, Chinyere, said she took the corpse of her relative who died in a private facility to FMC, Abuja but was told the mortuary was faulty. She had to go elsewhere to deposit the corpse.

Response of FMC Abuja

Responding, the Head, Clinical Services of the hospital, Dr Bioku Muftau, said the accident victims in the viral video have been treated and discharged.

He said contrary to the claims in the video, the emergency unit of the hospital has adequate equipment and medical consumables including latex gloves to attend to emergency cases including moving them from vehicles and stabilising them.

He said, “We are aware of the online video that tried to negatively portray the image of the hospital. We quickly set up an investigative committee to look into the incident that happened on that day, precisely on the 6th of June, 2025.

“The necessary equipment and materials are always adequate, including IV fluid, enough cannula, and the dressing packs. We have patient monitors all over the place in our accident and emergency unit which we use to monitor our patients. The equipment or materials to move the patient from the car or ambulance into our resuscitation area are also adequate and available.

“We have stretchers, and wheelchairs, depending on the type of the case. The government has provided them, and we always provide that all the time.”

He also said the hospital does not take the complaints of patients or relatives with levity.

“As a matter of fact, the hospital has various platforms to complain. I showed you earlier our QR code. You can just scan it with your phone, write your assessment of the service that is provided. So, they have multiple phone numbers everywhere in the hospital, in the ward, in the clinic, in other service points, for any patient or relative to complain about our services. So, you can also go online to email to also complain if you have any issue with our hospital, and most of these things we address. And because of this, some of the staff don’t sleep up to two or three hours every day,” he stated.

He said it was not usual for such a hospital that is usually filled to capacity most of the time to have one or two patients with a complaint.

While saying that the hospital resolves complaints in real time, he said at the centre, core of its mission and vision is reversing medical tourism.

He added that the hospital was one of the very few public hospitals that performs open heart surgeries, laser surgery and other advanced procedures and also commenced a kidney transplant programme, among others.

He added that the hospital’s patient base has hit 30,000 every month compared to 5,000 about five to six years ago.

Also, in a statement on Sunday Obadiah N.K. Gana, Public Relations Officer of FMC, Abuja said the Minister of State for Health and Social Welfare, Dr Iziaq Adekunle Salako, has directed a full investigation into the alleged neglect of accident victims at the emergency unit of the hospital.

He said, “The management is committed to providing a full report of our investigation once it is completed. The Federal Medical Centre, Abuja, prides itself on its open-door policy. We have multiple patient feedback channels available, including several phone numbers displayed throughout the hospital, QR codes, and email contacts.”

Gana said that in addition to running a medical indigent fund to assist underprivileged patients with hospital bills, the hospital has successfully treated numerous unconscious patients and safely returned them to their relatives with the help of its social workers.