Lekki Shooting: Our Hospital was Overwhelmed – Doctor Confirms.
It has been confirmed by the Reddington hospital, Lekki that several victims of the Lekki toll gate shooting on October 20, 2020, were brought to the hospital as mass casualties for emergency treatment.
A Consultant Trauma and Orthopaedic surgeon, Babajide Lawson, at Reddington hospital gave this testimony before the Lagos Judicial Panel of Inquiry investigating the incident on Saturday, January 30.
Mr. Lawson, while testifying before the judicial panel, said due to the crowd, there is a likelihood that the hospital did not capture the records of all the patients.
Lawson testified he knew patients who were victims of the October 20 incident and were brought to Reddington hospital on the said date and days after. Being in charge of trauma, he testified that he saw a couple of victims.
The Reddington hospital doctor said he can’t remember the exact number of victims brought that night but he saw 6 patients that night and subsequently attended to other patients.
Lawson testified that the victims sustained varying degrees of injuries.
“On the 20th, a lot of patients were presented, some were transferred to V.I and other branches. I work at V.I but that night, I went to the Lekki office to access the victims, there were a couple of them and I spoke with the MD of Lekki office.
“The MD transferred patients to V.I office where I worked till the 23rd.
During cross-examination, counsel to some #EndSARS protesters, Olumide Fusika requested for medical report of victims authored by Babjide Lawson.
“You will agree that there is none for Samuel Asola, who is a petitioner before this panel and my own client,” Mr. Fusika said.
“This client of mine says he was treated of gunshot wounds at your facility. He has pictorial proof of being actually treated. If that were to be true, it means your evidence before this panel is not comprehensive, it is not exhaustive of the people you treated of gunshot of wounds.”
The lawyer further asked whether the hospital extracted pellets from the patients as there were many cases of gunshots, especially in the case of Nnaji Mabel who had a pellet in her abdomen.
“As indicated in the report, we did not extract the pellet. I admitted the responsibility, we reviewed her CT and records, we determined that she did not need anything extensive, and she was treated and allowed to go,” the surgeon responded.
Lawson, however, confirmed that Nnadi Maybel, Joshua Samuel, Bright Osarehema, Philemon Lucky who are petitioners before the panel all sustained gunshot injury and were treated while those who needed to be operated on were also operated on at the hospital.
Olukayode Enitan, the lawyer to the Lagos State Government, said many of the medical reports presented by Reddington hospital did not add up.
He said he applied for the case notes of the patients to further clarify the position of the hospital.
“We applied to Reddington Hospital; we requested the hospital to produce the case notes of the patients whose reports have been presented. The reason for this is that when we went through the reports, too many of them do not add up, some are out rightly contradictory.
“We believe that the case notes will more than likely shed light on whatever it is. If it is a summation of actual events, the case note will show that, that is why we made that application.
“It is very necessary that we have the case notes before the doctors are presented for cross-examination,” Mr Enitan said.
Jonathan Ogunsanya, the panel counsel, said the hospital has been served to present the case notes.
The hospital’s lawyer, D.A Adeoye admitted they were served on Friday.
“We didn’t have enough time to go through the necessary process as required. However, we are able to prepare one or two, because there were different batches of patients that were treated.”
However, hearing, was adjourned till 12th February, by Justice Doris Okuwobi for cross-examination by the Lagos State counsel.
Olumide Fusika applied for adjournment as the medical report of his client was missing and could not continue cross-examination.
