UITH extends probe panel deadline over staff in self-isolation

The Management of the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital has extended the deadline for the sitting of its 10-member committee set up to investigate an alleged professional misconduct against its Senior Consultant, Prof. Kassim Salami.

Public Relations Officer of UITH, Mrs. Elizabeth Ajiboye, on Tuesday said that the committee would submit its report later this week.

Ajiboye said the committee was granted the extension of time to enable it to summon some of the medical personnel who participated in the treatment of the suspected coronavirus victim, late Muideen Obanimomo, a United Kingdom returnee, who died in the hospital on April 2, 2020.

She said, “The investigation panel is supposed to submit it report to the management of the hospital last week but was given extension of time till this week because it has to take evidence from some staff members who are currently in isolation because they treated the United Kingdom returnee who died in the hospital.

“It is necessary that some of them be invited to testify before the committee,” Ajiboye said.

Twenty-eight staff members of UITH who worked at the Accident and Emergency ward of the hospital, where the victim was admitted before his death, were asked to go into 14-day isolation which will end on Friday.

Recall that Salami was suspended by the authorities following his alleged misconduct in the management and eventual death of the suspected COVID-19 patient.

Meanwhile, the Kwara State branch of the Nigeria Medical Association has asked its medical and ethics committee to probe Salami’s actions in the management of the suspected COVID-19 patient.

The chairman of the state NMA, Dr Kolade Solagberu, said the seven-member committee headed by Prof. B.J. Bojuwoye, investigating what actually transpired.

Solagberu said since all the doctors who had contacts with the deceased were “currently on self-quarantine, it is difficult to get any information from them.”

Solagberu said “When the ethics committee submit its report, we will know the next line of action as we can’t rely on social media information.”