Aflao Central Hospital medical negligence case adjourned

The Ho High Court hearing the medial negligence case against the Aflao Central Hospital has adjourned the case to December 19.

The Aflao Central Hospital in the Ketu South Municipality of the Volta Region and two of its nurses were said to have refused attending to a patient, Linda Adua, unless she had deposited money to the hospital and that resulted in her death.

The nurses, Christine Kerbah and Kelvin Fenuku, second and third defendants, were said to have ignored the pleas of the woman and her 19-year-old son to make a mobile money payment for her treatment and left her unattended to until she died.

At a stage, when the patient said she was short of breath, one of the nurses told her to stop disturbing them, while reading text messages on her mobile phone.

Legal action

The legal action by the family of the deceased followed a report by the Volta Regional Directorate of Health, which identified institutional lapses, including unclear directives, lack of guidance, weak monitoring and over-reliance of locum staff as the factors which contributed to the death of the woman.

When the case was called last Wednesday, counsel for the defendants, Dr Maurice Ankah, was not in court.

That was the second time he had failed to turn up in court,  compelling the court to award a cost of GH¢3,000 against the defendants.

The court also said the case would proceed even if the defendants failed to turn up in court on the next adjourned date.

No settlement

The counsel for the plaintiffs, Christian Lebrecht Malm-Hesse, told the court, presided over by Justice Yaw Owoahene-Acheampong that several attempts to have the matter settled amicably outside the court proved futile.

“Settlement could not be reached because the other party is unwilling,” he told the court.

Reliefs,

The plaintiffs are seeking the court to look into whether or not the second and third defendants failed to render the standard care required of medical professionals to the deceased at the time she was under their care.

They are also seeking, among others, the court to look into whether or not the hospital, acting through the second and third defendants demanded a cash deposit from the deceased and her son before admission and treatment of the deceased, even though the deceased and her son pleaded with them to pay the money to the hospital via mobile money transfer.

The application for directions also include whether or not the death of the deceased would have occurred through the actions and inaction of the nurses on duty.