LUTH seeks sanctions against patients, relations concealing information from health workers

The Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba, Lagos, has called for a legal framework that prescribes severe penalties against any patient or relation that conceals the health status and travel history from caregivers.

Mr. Sesan Olajide, director, LUTH legal services, spoke in a statement on Monday in Lagos, following the recent development where a patient brought to the hospital was later found to be COVID-19 positive after his death in the hospital.

Olajide said that healthcare personnel would not be able to give their best when they were apprehensive or not sure of their own safety in the course of their duties.

He said: “It is not debatable that failure to provide correct travel history exposes healthcare personnel to actual harm or risk of harm.

“Therefore, it is being suggested that COVID-19 specific laws and regulations should make it mandatory for persons seeking medical care or persons accompanying them to make full disclosure about travels in and out of Nigeria.

“Failure to do so or concealment or misleading information in that regard, should attract severe punishment. Such provision should also be given the necessary publicity.

“Concealing information from healthcare personnel cannot only be detrimental to the patient, but may expose caregivers, other patients and the public to risk of harm or actual harm.

“This was seen in the recent cases of patients that presented at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital and University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital whose travel histories were concealed.

“They were later discovered after their deaths that they had recently returned from abroad, a red flag, that could have influenced decisions about their management.”

According to him, anyone can safely posit that the relations of those patients deliberately withheld the information from caregivers.

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“Because, presently, it would be almost impossible to have any case where upon presentation, a crucial part of the clerking session would not be travel history.

“Even, the President had emphasised the importance of not concealing travel history and the chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 reiterates this fact from time to time.

“Concealing travel history in the circumstances that we are would be an irresponsible and dishonest conduct, which unnecessarily exposes hospital staff, other patients and the public to avoidable risk of covid-19 infection.

“Having regard to the serious public health jeopardy that the deliberate concealment of relevant information pertaining to Covid-19 exposure poses, patients /accompanying relations should know that they may be liable to criminal prosecution.

“For example, for reckless act causing harm or for an act which is likely to spread the infection of a disease that is dangerous to life and to civil suit at the instance of affected health personnel.

“One may take the liberty of a cue from some jurisdictions (many states in the United States) where they have specific laws on HIV transmission and exposure that criminalise a person that is HIV positive exposing another person to the risk of HIV infection through unprotected sex without disclosing his status to the partner.

“Indeed, on this account, charges have been laid for recklessly endangering another person’s life, causing grievous harm, criminal negligence, aggravated assault,” he said.