ICU charges: Family, hospital clash over withheld patient's corpse
Late Yewande Olatunbosun FOR four agonising days, the Olatunbosun family clung to hope as their 68-year-old sister, Mrs. Yewande Olatunbosun, battled for her life inside what they were told was an Intensive Care Unit at Awesome Grace Hospital, a private medical facility along Ishaga area of Lagos. But when hope ran out and Yewande drew her final breath, a new and unimaginable nightmare began: the hospital refused to release her body over failure of the family to pay an outstanding bill of N7,126,500. The issue, it turned out is that the family cannot afford to pay. “We just want to bury our sister,” her heartbroken brother, Dr. Ayodele Ogunko, a Cardiologist/Consultant Physician, said in an emotional appeal to the hospital management. “Is that too much to ask? She has suffered enough. Let her rest.” Ayodele said they suspected that Yewande, a retired nurse and widow with two children, had struggled with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which worsened...