…Hospital Denies Leaving Patient Unattended, Says He Was Managed by Clinical Teams
The family of a 46-year-old man, Olatunde Joseph Ojelabi, has accused the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) of negligence, alleging that he was left for more than six hours without emergency treatment after sustaining serious injuries in a road crash.
CDA News Nigeria reports that Ojelabi’s brother, Kolawole Ojelabi, made the allegation in a Facebook post mourning his brother, who died at the hospital on September 12, 2026, six days after the accident.
CDA News Nigeria gathered that according to Kolawole, Olatunde was driving his family to church on September 6, a day before his 46th birthday, when a commercial tricycle allegedly made an abrupt turn along Ijegun Road, Ikotun, Lagos State. He swerved to avoid hitting the tricycle but crashed into a stationary vehicle, leaving him with severe injuries, particularly on the right side of his face.
Kolawole said Olatunde was initially taken to a nearby private hospital but was referred to LASUTH due to the severity of his injuries. He alleged that his brother arrived at the LASUTH Medical Emergency Unit before 9am but was left outside the emergency ward after the medical team said there was no bed available. He remained without what the family considered urgent emergency intervention for more than six hours before his condition deteriorated.
“He began to convulse and eventually suffered a cardiac arrest,” Kolawole said, adding that his brother was later transferred to the Intensive Care Unit, where he died on September 12, five days after his 46th birthday.
However, LASUTH management, in a statement shared on its Facebook page on Thursday, denied that Olatunde was left unattended. The hospital said he was assessed as a polytrauma patient requiring multidisciplinary specialist care and was managed by relevant clinical teams, including different consultant surgeons.
“Despite the interventions and supportive care provided, the patient’s clinical condition unfortunately deteriorated, and the patient subsequently passed away in the Intensive Care Unit, approximately seven days after presentation,” the statement read. LASUTH said the allegation that the patient was simply left unattended was “not consistent with the information available to the hospital.”
The hospital acknowledged the family’s concerns and said it would review the circumstances surrounding the patient’s presentation, treatment, progression, and eventual outcome through appropriate institutional processes.
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