By Ado-Aghughu Osabhahiemhen Adolphus

Access to healthcare is a fundamental human right. When people seek medical attention, they expect safe and appropriate treatment that will improve their health. However, medical practice is not without risks, and patients may sometimes suffer harm or injury while receiving care.

While some adverse outcomes may occur despite appropriate treatment, others may arise when a healthcare professional or institution fails to meet the standard of care. When this happens, the circumstances surrounding the patient’s care deserve thorough investigation rather than dismissal as an unfortunate outcome of medical practice.

This is where the conversation matters, because medical malfeasance is often discussed without sufficient context or understanding. Therefore, it is important to clarify that not every malpractice constitutes medical negligence and not every complication, injury, or poor patient outcome is necessarily the result of medical negligence.

A claim of medical negligence can stand where damages arise from a breach of a practitioner’s fiduciary duty. Medical negligence can occur when a medical practitioner or healthcare institution, through an act or omission, fails to exercise the level of care and skill reasonably expected, resulting in injury or other harm to the patient. Such damage may range from aggravated suffering to even death.

In situations where saving a patient’s life may seem impossible, the expectation remains primum non nocere, meaning “first, do no harm.” This principle is often found verbatim in most white-coat oaths and places a fundamental responsibility on healthcare practitioners to protect their patients from avoidable harm.

It does not suggest that medical treatment will always be free from risks or complications; rather, it requires practitioners to carefully consider the potential benefits and risks of treatment and take reasonable steps to prevent unnecessary harm.

When practitioners neglect this responsibility, the consequences can be serious. Medical negligence may take different forms, including active or passive negligence, gross negligence, continuing negligence, wilful negligence, and negligence per se.

In practice, these failures may manifest through carelessness in providing treatment, the use or dispensing of substandard or inappropriate treatments, surgical errors, misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis.

Others include medication errors such as administering the wrong drug or an incorrect dosage, injuries sustained during childbirth, and inadequate care that contributes to the deterioration of a patient’s state.

These forms of negligence may arise from individual errors, poor clinical judgement, inadequate supervision, or failures within the healthcare system.

Regardless of how they occur, the consequences can extend far beyond the immediate medical error, potentially resulting in prolonged suffering, permanent disability, or loss of life.

Experts say one in 10 patients experience harm globally while receiving care. This, according to the World Health Organisation, is the primary cause of 138 million unfavourable side effects and an estimated 2.6 million fatalities every year.

According to a patient safety poll conducted in 2025, about 43% claimed they have suffered some form of medical error; a finding in tandem with results which revealed that about 65% of patients who received care from the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital were dissatisfied with the quality of care, with more than two-thirds claiming negligence.

While it is difficult to determine the financial consequences of medical negligence, specialists estimate severe economic losses for both patients and healthcare establishments.

Healthcare professionals in Nigeria operate within a regulated system designed to establish standards of practice and protect patients. For instance, the Medical and Dental Practitioners Act (Cap. M8, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004) established the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria and provides the framework for regulating the practice of medicine and dentistry.

The same applies to other medical practitioners, where regulatory bodies are charged with licensing and mapping out the code of conduct. Each respective act sets the standard of practice, detailing ethics, duties and responsibilities to the profession and patients.

These regulatory frameworks are intended to provide clear standards for practice, setting out the ethical obligations, duties, and responsibilities healthcare professionals owe to both their professions and their patients. Therefore, there exist established rules governing healthcare delivery and accountability standards.

Yet, regulations do not necessarily guarantee compliance. Despite these established standards and protocols, concerns about medical negligence among healthcare professionals in Nigeria persist, while many cases may go unreported or receive limited attention.

This raises an important question: if the standards governing professional practice are already clearly defined, why do patients continue to experience harm that is sometimes preventable?

The consequences of lapses in patient safety are not merely theoretical. In January 2026, the Hospital Management Board in Kano State confirmed that Aishatu Umar had died due to carelessness when a pair of surgical scissors was sewn into her body. Her family claims the doctors referred to this as God’s will.

Similar concerns have emerged in other cases. Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is accusing Eura-care Multi-Specialist Hospital in Lagos of gross medical negligence and dishonest practice following the death of her 21-month-old son, Nkanu Nnamdi.

The allegation, like any claim of medical negligence, should be distinguished from a legally established finding; however, such cases continue to raise questions about the quality of care, patient safety, and the mechanisms available for accountability when things go wrong.

Beyond these publicly reported cases are the experiences of patients and families who may not have the same public platform. In June of 2026, Habib’s father (whose real name has been withheld) underwent a procedure at a private healthcare facility in Lagos.

The 66-year-old  alleged shortcomings in his post-operative care and that the family was provided with a PDF document presented as a guide to post-operative care. The circumstances surrounding this account raise questions about whether appropriate clinical monitoring and professional judgement were provided after the procedure.

These cases may differ in their circumstances, severity, and the extent to which the allegations have been formally established. They should therefore not be automatically classified as medical negligence.

What they do, however, is highlight a recurring concern: when patients suffer serious harm while receiving treatment, a credible mechanism for investigating what happened must be put in place.

Patients and their families also have a role to play, as accountability only begins when those wronged speak out. Many individuals who believe they have suffered medical harm may choose to remain silent because of fear, intimidation, financial limitations, social pressure, or uncertainty about where to seek redress.

But when such experiences remain hidden, the true scale of patient-safety failures becomes difficult to determine.

Nigeria can combat the cancer of medical negligence when citizens and government work together to expose harm and suffering to patients, their families, and caregivers. This includes providing access to justice mechanisms and protection for those who share their experiences.

In preventing medical negligence, it is not enough to demand that professionals be technically competent; they must also embody moral empathy.

Competence ensures that procedures are carried out correctly, but empathy reminds practitioners that every patient is a human being whose life is sacred. Therefore, we must emphasise the dignity of life, alongside the importance of holding accountable any body or institution responsible for lapses in care.

Ultimately, the mere fact that a patient was harmed does not, by itself, establish negligence. What matters is the chain of decisions and actions before, during, and after the harm occurred. Therefore, we must look at the decisions, the care provided, the standards followed or ignored, and whether the outcome could reasonably have been prevented.

Ado-Aghughu Osabhahiemhen Adolphus is a media and political analyst and writes from Abuja