News
Aflao hospital under investigation after woman was left to die as nurses refused MoMo payment
The Medical and Dental Council have begun investigations into an incident at the Central Aflao Hospital in the Ketu South Municipality of the Volta Region where two nurses of the facility were alleged to have refused to treat a patient in a critical condition, unless cash was deposited, leading to her death.
The two nurses have since been released for investigations after the family of the deceased, Linda Adua, 39, petitioned the president, the Minister of Health, the Ghana Health Service and the Medical and Dental Council.
The Volta Regional Health Director, Dr. Senanu Djokoto confirmed the incident to Citi News and noted that internal investigations have begun and the report will be made available in a few days.
Background
According to the family of the deceased, several pleas of the sick woman and her 19-year-old son could not convince the nurses to accept mobile money payment for her treatment, leaving the patient unattended until she passed away.
The Medical and Dental Council and the Ghana Health Service (GHS) have swiftly responded to the petition and dispatched a team of investigators to the hospital to probe the matter.
Dr Gabrielle Kojo, the Medical Director of the Aflao Central Hospital, also known as Nkansah Hospital, confirmed to the Daily Graphic that a team from the GHS was in the hospital to investigate the matter.
“The police have summoned us to release the nurses involved for interrogation on the matter, which we have done,” he said.
Dr Makafui Dagbasu, the Medical Director of the Ketu South Municipal Hospital, the main referral centre of the municipality, also confirmed that the hospital was currently being investigated over the subject.
Abigail Adua, an elder sister of the deceased, told the Daily Graphic that at a point when Linda appeared to have died, the hospital directed the son to take her to a government facility where she was pronounced dead on arrival.
Linda, who is yet to be buried, lived with her only son in Aflao, where she operated a restaurant.
“Much as we appreciate the work and dedication to duty of health professionals, we think that there are some bad lots among them in the hospitals and clinics, whose actions and inaction are denting the image of the medical and nursing professions and need to be brought to order to sanitise the system,” Ms Adua said.
She said Linda’s son, Jerry Nii Tetteh, had just gained admission to pursue a degree programme at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), and was now left alone and traumatised as his reliable source of support and friend was gone.
Abigail said on April 11 this year, Linda asked her son to accompany her to the hospital because she was not feeling too well.
“They reached the hospital around 4:05 a.m., and were met by two nurses on duty, who requested that they made a deposit of GH¢400 before she would be attended to,” Abigail narrated.
She said Linda offered to pay through mobile money transfer, but the nurses said electronic transfers were against the hospital’s policy, insisting that Tetteh should go out of the hospital to look for a mobile money merchant to withdraw cash for the payment.
“My sister pleaded with the nurses to take the MoMo and attend to her because it was too early in the morning to find a merchant to withdraw the money, but they refused,” she said.
Plea
She said Linda’s son later “had to walk from the hospital to Avoeme Junction before getting a motorbike to take him to the Aflao Border, about two kilometres from the hospital, in search of a mobile money merchant.
“All this while, Linda remained seated in a wheelchair in the outpatient department (OPD) unattended to by the nurses. No details of the complaints were recorded, and her vitals were also not taken except her name which was recorded in the patient register at the OPD,” she added.
The son found no merchant to facilitate the cash withdrawal, she said.
Linda, meanwhile, complained of difficulty in breathing and pleaded with the nurses to put her on oxygen.
“One of the nurses retorted that she was disturbing them as she scanned her phone,” she said.
She said Linda, who had been wheeled to a ward, asked the son to assist her to the washroom, but she fell on the way.
“It was at that point that another patient in the ward, who witnessed the whole incident, rushed out to inform the nurses about what had happened.
“The nurse, apparently sensing danger, told Linda’s son to get a taxi and take her to the Ketu South Municipal Hospital as her situation was beyond their capacity,” she said.
Confused and helpless
Abigail said the son rushed to get the taxi as his mother remained motionless, and by the time he got back to the hospital with the taxi, the mother had been put on a stretcher, and wheeled from the ward to the entrance of the hospital.
She said the nurses asked the young man to sit in the taxi as they pushed the motionless body of his mother into the taxi, with her head resting on his laps and instructed him to take her to the Ketu South Municipal Hospital without a referral note or an accompanying officer.
“Just upon arrival at the Ketu South Municipal Hospital, Linda was pronounced dead by the medical staff who said they were sure she had died several minutes before being brought to their facility at about 7:40 a.m,” she said.
Abigail said when the news of the incident reached the family, they reached out to the management of the Central Aflao Hospital to understand what Linda’s son had narrated to them.
Source: Citi Newsroom with background from the Daily Graphic
Hundreds of street children received a special treat during the Christmas festivities as a result of a collaboration between the management of the La Beach Hotel and the Street Academy in Accra.
It was part of the Hotel’s current arrangement to provide lunch for the children of the Academy every Friday.
Courtesy that partnership, management of the La Beach Hotel feted hundreds of street children housed by the Street Academy, creating a partying moment for the children.
According to officials of the Hotel, the gesture was to let the children feel part of the festivities and not left out.
The children enjoyed delicious meals and snack after which they danced as they enjoyed the moment.
According to the Hotel officials, “the season represents one that every parent gathers their children and shower them with gifts and others to make them happy but sadly, these unfortunate children are left on their own, having no one to care for them.”
“This is an event we intend to make an annual one. Through this, we hope to put some smiles on their faces. It is not proper to leave them on their own.”
The Executive Director of the Academy, Ataa Lartey, expressed gratitude to the management of the hotel, saying that, “this has gone a long way to excite the children and make them feel part of the celebration.”
He said due to the number of children that join around this time of the year, it becomes difficult for the Academy alone to shoulder this responsibility.
“It is not easy to organise such activities alone because it draws a lot of children, that is, those in the Academy and their friends that follow them but with such cooperate supports, we are able to bring them together to share in moments like this,” he told The Spectator.
By Spectator Reporter
Join our WhatsApp Channel now!
https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbBElzjInlqHhl1aTU27
A 30-year-old surrogate mother has delivered a set of quadruplets at The Walking Egg Medical and Fertility Centre at Pokuase in Accra, in a rare surrogacy success that has brought renewed attention to assisted reproductive care in Ghana.
The babies-two boys and two girls- were delivered through a caesarean section in the early hours of Tuesday at 36 weeks and weighed an average 2.5 kilograms each, a weight doctors say was healthy for a multiple pregnancy.
IUI stands for Intrauterine Insemination, a common fertility treatment where healthy sperm are collected, ‘washed’ and concentrated in a lab, and then directly inserted into a woman’s uterus around ovulation using a thin catheter to help sperm reach the egg for fertilisation, often used for unexplained infertility, cervical issues, or mild male factor infertility, and is less invasive than IVF.
Speaking to The Spectator after the surgery, the Medical Director of the Centre, Dr Nana Yaw Osei, said the pregnancy was achieved through Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) and was not planned to result in multiple births.
“With IUI, you introduce prepared sperm into the uterus and have no control over how many eggs fertilized.”
“Unlike IVF, where embryos are formed outside the body and the number transferred can be controlled, this outcome was left entirely to nature,” Dr Osei explained.
He said unlike IVF which could result in multiple babies, this is “possibly the first IUI leading to quadruplets in Ghana.”
He revealed that the surrogacy arrangement was necessary because the intended mother had lost her uterus during surgery to remove fibroids, making it medically impossible for her to carry a pregnancy.
“She had no womb of her own, through no fault of hers,” Dr Osei said, adding that “Surrogacy was the only option available for her to have a biological child.”
When scans later showed that the surrogate was carrying four fetuses, the medical team considered fetal reduction, a procedure sometimes used to reduce risks in multiple pregnancies. However, the option was rejected.
“As a strong Christian, fetal reduction is abortion to me,” Dr Osei said. “After discussions with the intended parents and the surrogate, we all agreed to continue with the pregnancy.”
Despite concerns commonly associated with multiple pregnancies, Dr Osei noted that the surrogate experienced no major complications, and the delivery was smooth. Paediatric assessments conducted after birth confirmed that all four babies are healthy.
Dr Osei again indicated that surrogacy, though still widely misunderstood, is recognised under the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 2020 (Act 1027).
He urged the public to engage the subject with greater understanding.
“Surrogacy is not about convenience,” he said. “It is about restoring hope to people who have lost the ability to carry a child.”
Describing the moment of delivery, he added, “I was in tears in the theatre. It reminded me why I chose this profession.”
By Esinam Jemima Kuatsinu
Join our WhatsApp Channel now!
https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbBElzjInlqHhl1aTU27
