The Coroner inquest rules that 12 year old Dowen college student, Sylvester Oromoni jnr who died in November 2021 under controversial circumstances suffered “avoidable excruciating pain” due to parental and medical negligence, which led to his “needless” death.
Magistrate, Mikhail Kadiri just finished delivering his findings at about 3:24pm, which he started reading at about 9:10am.
32 witnesses were called in the coroner’s inquest which started in January 2022.
Among the evidence relied on included the findings of two autopsies conducted on the deceased in Warri, Delta state and Lagos.
The autopsies revealed the cause of master Oromoni’s death to include septicemia which demanded urgent medical care that will include rigorous treatment to include timeous blood transfusions and ample dosage of IV fluids.
The coroner exonerated the school of negligence and the five senior students accused of bullying the deceased and administering a poisonous substance on him.
The coroner added that the deceased who sustained an injury while playing football in his school about eight days to his death should have been treated on time, having been in pain all along. Yet, his parents sent a guardian to bring him to his Lagos home, and was taken to Warri days later by road.
The family doctor, Henry Aghogho was also slammed for not providing the required duty of care for the patient whose home care treatment was “trivialized”. despite early diagnosis, the doctor was found to have abandoned the deceased for more than 32 hours and didn’t carry out an X-ray and scan early enough which would have revealed his deteriorating condition.
The coroner also gives some recommendations, including advising parents not to take their children’s health with levity, as well as better synergy between police, and medical team in such matters.
He also called for proper psychological evaluation for the 5 students suspected to have bullied the deceased.
