Hospital detains corpse of 12-year-old over N400, 000 hospital bill

The University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH) has seized the corpse of a 12-year-old girl, Glory Ekeleyede, over the inability of her parents to offset the hospital bill, despite the plea by the family to release the corpse for burial

Penpushing reports that ,the 66 year old  bereaved father, Samson Ekeleyede said the   girl  died in the hospital on 15 July during an illness, which the family had spent fortune and now thrown them into financial crisis

The source said the cost of her treatment accumulated to N400, 000, adding that the family borrowed to pay hospital bills and other sundry expenses, and finds it difficult to offset the outstanding bill, hence, the hospital authorities held on to the corpse

Penpushing further reports that, the father, a peasant farmer was quoted saying that, following the sad development the family barely eats again while all their resources had been expended on their daughter before she gave up the ghost.

“I learnt tailoring but that is not what I am doing. I am doing small jobs outside to feed my children. My wife sells tomatoes and pepper in the market and that is how we have been managing’, the bereaved said.

“The child died on the 15th of July and since then she has been in the mortuary. I went to plead with them; they said it’s not their making. They said I have to pay. They said they used oxygen and that is why the money is high. You used oxygen; the oxygen did not work’, he stated

“If the child is alive now, it’s another thing. But they said till I pay, they will not release her body to us to bury it. I have been going there, but they refused. I told one of my fathers in the church. He was very touched and he wrote a letter to the government. He said I should take it to the office of the deputy governor’, Ekeleyede said

“That time the governor was on leave; he was the one acting. The day I took it there was when Governor Obaseki returned from his leave. I gave it to the PRO. That is the person my father in the church said I should give it to. I think he also mentioned it to the wife of the deputy governor. Since then, we have been waiting, but nothing has happened”, he added.

Penpushing also reports that the Public Relations Officer of the hospital, Uwaila Joshua, when contacted declared that when there is presumption that when patient receive care, the patient has to pay for it.

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