IMO activist wins release of twins seized by doctor over unpaid bill

Human rights activist Chidiebube Okeoma has taken home several twin boys who were taken away by a doctor because their mother was unable to pay medical bills after she gave birth to the children on May 4, 2024.

Okeoma, in a statement in Owerri, the Imo State capital, on Saturday, said the Commissioner of Police, Aboki Danjuma, should be commended for his professional and fatherly intervention that brought the twin boys home despite the doctor’s insistence that they continue to be kept. against their basic human rights.

He said he was not the first person to come to the maternity ward asking for the babies and their 19-year-old mother to be discharged, but the doctor made it impossible.

Okeoma said KP’s intervention after a doctor admitted in his office on Thursday that he had jokingly asked for the children to be exchanged instead of a shipping bill was commendable.

The activist said that in addition to taking the babies home for the first time since they were born about six months ago, well-meaning citizens, thanks to his efforts, were able to secure the release of the babies, bought food, diapers and distributed cash in the amount of Mother of Twins 100 000 Naira

He called on the commissioner to charge the doctor with hostage-taking, violating medical ethics and attempting to compromise the identities of the twins.

The activist said that his team was not the first to come for the release of the twins, but the doctor continued to inflate the cost of delivery in order to make life difficult for those who would come for their release.

Okeoma has asked the police chief to set up a commission to investigate the attack that a doctor and his nurses inflicted on a 19-year-old nursing mother and grandmother.