By Uzoma Kabichidi Wendy
I have never met anyone who enjoys going to the hospital. For most people, the waiting rooms alone are enough to spark anxiety. But in Nigeria, that anxiety is not just about the illness you came in with, it is also about what might happen after.
There is a quiet fear that many Nigerians carry when they walk through the doors of a hospital, not just fear of illness but also fear of what might happen while seeking care. It is a fear born not from paranoia but from experience.
Here, getting admitted into a hospital is not always the start of recovery. For some, it is the beginning of a long, quiet descent into pain, confusion and, sometimes, loss that no one saw coming. We don’t talk about this enough, how our health system can sometimes be the very thing that harms us. We don’t talk about it enough, but we should. Medical negligence in Nigeria is not just a technical issue buried in dusty legal reports. It is equally a deep human tragedy that plays out every day in maternity wards, emergency rooms and rural clinics. And, too often, those affected never get justice or even acknowledgment. Everyone has heard a story. A neighbour’s mother who died after a wrong transfusion. A child who was misdiagnosed and given the wrong medication. A young woman who bled out in labour because the only doctor on duty was stuck in traffic, or nowhere near, or already overwhelmed.
Stories of misdiagnosed illnesses, wrong surgeries and avoidable deaths have become a grim chorus echoing through households, workplaces, markets and headlines. And when it happens, people whisper, ‘God knows best,’ and move on. But behind those whispers is a haunting truth, a lot of what we call fate was really failure.
In 2023, over 3,000 medical malpractice complaints were filed in Nigeria, but only 2 percent led to disciplinary action (Nigerian Medical Association, Premium Times, 2019). Many cases never reach court due to poor systems, fear of retaliation or silence.
I remember reading about Dr. Vwaere Diaso, a young doctor who died after an elevator crash in a government hospital in Lagos. An elevator. Not malaria. Not cancer. Just a regular day in a place that should have been the safest for someone like her.
There was also the story of Somtochukwu Ezi-Ashi, a 16-year-old boy, who walked into a clinic with a sports injury and ended up losing almost everything because a doctor set his leg in plaster without an X-ray. The damage was so severe that he needed surgeries abroad. Years passed before any justice came and that only happened because his parents had the means and the voice to fight. How many Nigerians have that luxury? Our basic rights have become luxuries only intended for those that can afford it.
Recently, I heard about a story trending on Twitter from my lecturer in class, a brave warrior facing the harrowing struggles of a prescribed drug overdose, one strong enough to kill her. @Theoyegoke on twitter, Shalewa Oyegoke has an ongoing battle from a negligent doctor and has undergone 14 surgeries! Due to an error from the doctor and ignoring her complaints from that same doctor.
Medical negligence is not always loud or catastrophic. Sometimes, it is quiet; a missed dosage or an overdose. A careless assumption. A broken machine no one fixed because the technician had not been paid. And yet, these ‘small’ things can change or end lives.
That is what makes this issue so heavy. It is not just about laws or policies, it is also about trust, the most fragile currency between a patient and the person holding the stethoscope.
And, truthfully, most doctors and nurses I have known are really trying their best. But trying in a system built to fail eventually wears even the best people down. When a hospital has one defibrillator for an entire wing, when the generator dies mid-surgery, when health workers have not been paid for months, mistakes stop being rare. They become expected.
Why don’t we talk about it? Maybe it is shame, maybe it is fear. Or maybe it is that deep, tired feeling… “What’s the point?” when you have watched complaint letters disappear into office drawers.
The Medical and Dental Council is supposed to investigate malpractice, The National Health Act, 2014, outlines rights and protections. But ask anyone who has tried to report negligence and they would likely tell you the same thing, it goes nowhere, or it takes so long, the fire in you dies before the file ever moves.
We are not just statistics but people. If you have ever lost someone because of poor care or watched someone you love suffer because a nurse shrugged or a drug was out of stock, you know this is not abstract, it is personal.
We draft documents and release statements, we talk a lot about reform. But what people need is not another panel, they need hospitals where they are safe, respected and seen. They need to believe that, if something goes wrong, someone will care enough to say so and fix it.
Healthcare should be the one place where we are most human and, right now, too many people are walking out of hospitals in Nigeria with more pain than they walked in with.