Alleged Negligence: Unical Students Protest Death of Colleague 

By Stanley Ekpenyong (South-south, Bureau Chief)

Protest erupted Saturday at the University of Calabar (UNICAL) after an ailing student died due to alleged negligence by health personnel in the school’s hospital.

The protesting students insist that their colleague, a 300-level student UNICAL, Agidi, identified as Precious Mhenuter would not have if the school’s medical authorities had attended to her promptly without insisting she made available the hospital card which cost only N200.

It was gathered that the 22-year-old fell ill at her hostel on Saturday morning, January 28, and was rushed to the school’s medical centre for treatment.

However, she was allegedly left unattended for hours until she eventually gave up the ghost.

According to an eyewitness, “Precious got sick this morning by 4 am and we rushed her to our school’s medical centre.

“We got there by 5 am and they asked us to go and buy a card for N200 but we couldn’t get the card because the people at record weren’t around. So they didn’t attend to her. They left her even as she was in pain.

She eventually died at 7 am, two hours after we got there. And they took her to the mortuary at about 8 am without even contacting her parents.”

The unfortunate incident angered students who took to the streets within the campus to demand justice for their colleagues.

Meanwhile the Vice Chancellor of the University of Professor  Florence Banku Obi, has directed the Medical Board of the institution to urgently conduct a thorough investigation into the circumstances leading to the death of Miss Mhenuter who was a student of the Department of Library and Information Science before her demise.

The Registrar of the institution, Gabriel Egbe in a release, said the Vice Chancellor, as well as the entire institution, values the lives of her students and is devastated by the painful loss reported at the Medical Centre.

According to the release, the Medical Board is to investigate the circumstances surrounding the deceased admission at the University Medical Centre, determine if the death could have been prevented, and examine the roles played by the individual staff of the Medical Centre in managing the patient.

The Board is also expected to establish the veracity or otherwise of allegations of carelessness or negligence of duty among the staff of the hospital in handling the patient and advise management on how to avoid a reoccurrence of similar situations in the future.

The report of the Board is expected to reach the Vice-Chancellor on or before Thursday, February 2, 2023.