Published 23rd Dec, 2023

By Tola Owoyele

Dr. Amos Akinbiyi, a clinical professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada, was going about his daily routine as a veteran physician on September 1, 2017, when he received a call that his attention was urgently needed at Regina General Hospital, one of the oldest hospitals in the province.

Like any doctor would, Akinbiyi immediately ran to the Mother Baby Unit of the hospital, hoping to save lives like he had been doing for more than 40 years.

While he was on the way to the unit, he was given additional information that the patient whose life he was about to save was his daughter. At that point, he realised everything was wrong with the call. No doctor should be made to treat their own daughter by any hospital in the world.

He, however, went ahead to save his daughter’s life for two reasons: first, his daughter’s life was at stake, and second, waiting on the hospital to do the right thing by assigning an equally qualified doctor to his daughter might take an eternity and could also lead to her death.

He attended to his daughter, who had suffered a cardiac arrest, and managed to save her life.

After the incident, he made a verbal complaint to the hospital’s management, registering his displeasure with being the doctor who was called upon to save his own daughter. Two hours after the complaint was made, Akinbiyi’s daughter suffered a second cardiac arrest. And despite his earlier protest, the doctor was called upon a second time by the hospital to go and save his daughter’s life.

AKINBIYI’S INTERVIEW WITH FIJ

In an interview with FIJ, Akinbiyi said his daughter had just had a caesarean section when the incident happened.

“What happened was that two hours after my daughter, who is also a medical doctor, had a caesarean section, she started bleeding and eventually coded,” said Akinbiyi.

“By this, I mean she went into a cardiorespiratory arrest. We have different codes in medicine. There is code red, code white, code yellow and code blue.

“When a code blue is declared, it means a patient has had a cardiac arrest. And once you’re called upon as a doctor, you have to attend to the patient immediately.

“So, you can imagine how I felt when I was called by the hospital to come and attend to my daughter, who was on code blue. A scenario that should never play out anywhere in the world.

“As a doctor, and where there are many doctors, you are not supposed to be forced to treat your own relatives, not to talk of your own daughter.

“After I revived my daughter the first time, I made sure I told the management of Regina General Hospital never to call me to come revive my daughter again. Why would anyone expect me to be cutting up my own daughter?

“It is unethical, unprofessional and wicked. No doctor should be subjected to doing that.

“Two hours after I first attended to my daughter, she coded a second time. When this happened, the hospital management called me a second time.

“This was after I had had a conversation with them on forcing me to attend to my own daughter. I was irate, but I kept my cool and had eight other medical personnel work with me so we could treat my daughter. It was a scary experience. Thankfully, everything went well.”

THE PROTEST LETTER AND THE BATTLE THAT FOLLOWED

On September 17, 2017, and when Akinbiyi would not get a formal apology from Regina General Hospital on the incident, he wrote a protest letter to the management.

“Guess what? They never took my protest letter seriously,” Akinbiyi told FIJ.

“In 2020, and when I realised that the management of the hospital actually chose not to take me seriously, I reported the matter to Scott Moe, the premier of Saskatchewan and Paul Merriman, the then Minister of Health.

A part of the Complaint Lodged by Akinbiyi

“I also phoned their offices, detailing what happened. When the Saskachewan Health Authority (SHA), the health authority that provides direct and contracted health services in the region, realised I had chosen to get relevant authorities involved in the matter, they resorted to making life a living hell for me.”

Akinbiyi said that the hospital began intimidating and harassing him on all fronts.

“The actual lady that performed the C-section on my daughter later became the head of the department, and the intimidation became intensified,” said Akinbiyi.

“Funny enough, she used to be a resident under me. I trained all of them.”

Akinbiyi said he got a phone call from a lawyer representing the Canadian Medical Protection Association (CMPA).

“During our phone conversation, the lawyer told me that the SHA was going to phone me, and that they were also planning on suspending my licence to practice,” said Akinbiyi.

“I asked the lawyer why the SHA was planning on suspending me, but he said he didn’t know. Can you imagine my lawyer telling me he did not why the SHA was planning on suspending me?

“About 10 to 15 minutes after that, a representative from the SHA phoned me to say I had been suspended. Like the lawyer, the official also failed to give me reasons for the suspension.

“It took the SHA another one week before they could bring out nine frivolous excuses for placing me on suspension.

“It was this same me they had in the past consistently run to whenever they had a highly sensitive medical case that needed an urgent solution. I would usually bail them out on such occasions.

“Now, because you want to intimidate and victimise me, you are saying I am mismanaging cases. The same person who had dedicated the most years of his career as medical doctor to you since 1996?

“I reported to the CMDA lawyer and the frivolous excuses made up against me were then subsequently dismissed.”

FRESH 28 CASES

After the SHA’s nine charges were dismissed, the association later reached out to the Nigerian doctor, inviting him to a meeting to see how the matter could be resolved.

“After three to four weeks, I went back to work,” said Akinbiyi.

“This was when the hospital came up with fresh excuses that included an accusation that I no longer teach and supervise the resident doctors that were under my supervision.

“They also added that they would no longer allow the resident doctors to work with me.”

Akinbiyi added that during the period, he was given conditions that included not appearing anywhere around SHA-controlled hospitals.

“They ended up giving me terrible conditions, but I rejected all of them. This happened on November 8, 2021,” he said.

“Four months after, the SHA again wrote me to return to work with a promise that they would return all my privileges to me. I, however, refused and chose to continue with my private practice. I also continued working in my role as a professor at the university.

“What then happened was that the hospital collated 28 fresh cases against me, just so the college of medicine could suspend my licence.

“My defence lawyer then contacted the college to warn them not to jump into conclusions, and that I would be vindicated.”

Akinbiyi said his lawyer submitted a report to the college in March 2022 and the authority recommended that an Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) approach be taken by the two parties.

“The reason the college recommended an ADR was because it did not find any substance in the trumped-up allegations the hospital had levelled against me,” said Akinbiyi.

“Out of the 28 cases, I discovered that the hospital indeed forged my signatures on three of the cases that they tendered. They amended and altered the documents.

“When I reached out to a forensic expert, he told me he needed to see original copies of the documents in question to be able to tell the extent of the forgery perpetrated by the hospital.

“Unfortunately, the hospital has refused to surrender the original documents to me. When they realised this could potentially become a legal matter, the premier and the health minister wrote the SHA, telling it to contact me and settle the matter immediately.”

Akinbiyi hinted that the matter might eventually end up in court in 2024.

WHO IS AMOS AKINBIYI?

FIJ checked Akinbiyi’s LinkedIn profile and found that he graduated from the University of Ibadan, Oyo State, with a Bachelor of Surgery and Bachelor of Medicine (MBBS) in 1980.

Having first worked at the University College Hospital (UCH), Akinbiyi left the shores of Nigeria in 1985. Between 1986 and 1993, he was Registrar/Senior Registrar in obstetrics and gynaecology at the Royal Oldham Hospital in the United Kingdom.

He moved to Canada in 1993, where he worked as the Head, Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Burin Peninsular Health Care Centre in Newfoundland.

By the time he started working with the College of Medicine, Department of Obstetrics, Gynaecology and Reproductive Endocrinology in 1996 at the University of Saskatchewan, he had already become a Clinical Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

Research also showed that he was a classmate of Isaac Adewole, a former vice-chancellor of the University of Ibadan who served as Nigeria’s health minister between 2015 and 2019.

Evidence showed that he had tutored many residents who have become surgeons in Saskatchewan.

SASKATCHEWAN HEALTH AUTHORITY’S RESPONSE TO FIJ

On December 19, FIJ sent a mail to the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA), requesting comments on the allegations made by Akinbiyi. Copied in the mail were the Saskatchewan Medical Association (SMA) and other individuals believed to be principal actors in the matter.

Two days later, the SHA would issue a response:

“The Saskatchewan Health Authority’s (SHA) greatest priority and commitment is ensuring the safety of its patients, residents, employees and physicians across the province. Patient, employee and physician safety are not mutually exclusive; good working conditions help prevent patients and providers from experiencing physical, emotional or psychological harm.

“The SHA strongly believes that diversity is part of its strength and offers compulsory cultural responsiveness training as part of employee orientation. The SHA is committed to have a workforce that is representative of all demographics that can better support our diverse population.

“The SHA’s Practitioner Staff Bylaws have provisions regarding reviews of an individual practitioner. The process permits practitioners to have representation; allows for alternative dispute resolution and provides a right to appeal SHA decisions.

“The SHA also has internal processes for patients, staff and physicians to report concerns regarding Quality of Care issues and concerns about their workplace environment. These concerns can also be addressed through various external agencies including the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan (the licensing and regulatory body for physicians in Saskatchewan).

“The SHA is aware of the concerns expressed by Dr. Amos Akinbiyi. The SHA will not comment about a specific physician’s concerns, nor will the SHA comment about Quality of Care concerns regarding any specific physician.”

THINGS TO NOTE

The SHA failed to issue a clear response to FIJ on the allegations made by the Nigerian doctor.

Under the Patient–Physician Relationship section of the Canadian Medical Association’s (CMA) Code of Ethics and Professionalism, doctors in the country are given the advice below:

“Limit treatment of yourself, your immediate family, or anyone with whom you have a similarly close relationship to minor or emergency interventions and only when another physician is not readily available.”

In Akinbiyi’s case, the circumstances that led to him being made to treat his own daughter by the management of Regina General Hospital did not show that he was the only doctor on the premises who could have attended to her.

After treating his own daughter the first time, he registered his displeasure verbally to the hospital’s management, letting them know that he did not find their actions ethical and professional.

However, when she (his daughter) suffered a second cardiac arrest two hours later, the hospital again called on him to go revive her.

After Akinbiyi officially demanded an apology by writing a letter to the SHA, it took the association three years before a response could be issued to him, and only after he had got the premier of the province involved.

Interestingly, the same doctor who carried out a caesarean section on his daughter hours before she suffered the two cardiac arrests later became the head of Akinbiyi’s department at the hospital, and this coincided with the period the alleged harassment and witch-hunting started.

Having worked in the capacity of an academician, researcher and teacher of obstetrics and gynaecology in Saskatchewan for 27 years, Akinbiyi’s profile does not fit the description of a surgeon prone to making errors on the job as described by Regina General Hospital.

AKINBIYI NOT THE FIRST FOREIGN-TRAINED DOCTOR TO BE VICTIMISED BY REGINA GENERAL HOSPITAL

On October 5, 2023, ten foreign-trained doctors from Africa and East Asia filed a complaint against the leadership of Reginal General Hospital, alleging ‘racist and discriminatory leadership’.

The doctors claimed the management stripped them of their former roles in the hospital and then handed the most lucrative shifts, such as teaching shifts, almost exclusively to white doctors.

“It was a wonderful place to settle in—inclusive—and that has been my experience 100 per cent up until recently,” said Babatunde Adewunmi, a Nigerian doctor working at the hospital.

“We felt like there was a gross abuse of power, essentially telling us we’re not as good as the others and we don’t deserve to be equal,” said Abiodun Abdulazzez Olajide, another Regina General Hospital doctor from Nigeria.

When the doctors lodged an official complaint, some of the claimants alleged that they experienced increased bullying and harassment, including faulty complaints about them to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan.

When the claimants approached the Ministry of Health about the situation, they got no response.