The University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH) has denied a viral claim on social media that 14 babies died in its special care baby unit due to a power outage
A viral post on social media claimed that not less than 14 babies died in incubators at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH) due to a power outage.
In a tweet thread, which has now been deleted, Chijioke Ekwulu, a Twitter user, said the irregular power supply at the hospital also disrupted surgery procedures
The tweet, posted on July 1, gathered over 3,100 retweets, 1,120 quotes, and over 3,000 likes before it was deleted.
The report made reference to a mother who lost her twin babies to the power outage, after being childless for seven years.
A medical officer at the hospital who spoke to Standardobservers News on the conditions of anonymity said among the dead babies were the twin babies of a woman who had been looking for the fruit of the womb for seven years,” the report read.
However, according to TheCable, Lucky Onotai, professor and chairman of the medical advisory committee, UPTH, was contacted to confirm the veracity of the story.
He dismissed the claims and said, nothing like that happened.
He said he doesn’t know why people like to thrive on fake news and it is a case of people working to tarnish the hospital’s name.
He, however, confirmed there were some transformer issues but insisted it did not affect the special baby care unit, where the incubators are kept as there are special departments that have dedicated generators on standby. One of them is the special baby care unit and it is impossible for power to go out that long.
According to Onotai, the hospital’s PRO has also confirmed that it is fake news. He said they receive hospital statistics every day, but nothing of such has happened.
Best Ordinoha, a professor and doctor at UPTH, also refuted the claim, saying that the special baby care unit has its own generator and if the power goes out, the generator comes on immediately.
He also said that before the babies die from temperature irregularity, it will take hours and it can’t be for health care professionals to sit and fold their hands for hours and watch the babies die.
The BBC Pidgin also visited the special care baby unit in Port Harcourt.
In its report, a mother, Peace Marcus, whose baby is still in the incubator receiving care said she has been on admission for over a month with her preterm baby.
According to her, she has not seen a dead child in the baby care unit since she got admitted.
Recall that Nigeria’s national grid collapsed more than four times in 2022 resulting in power outages across the country.
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