Girl with renal failure dies due to 'Cash and Carry'

Authorities at the Korle Bu Teaching hospital in Accra are under fire from the Ghanaian public following the death of Miss Eva Boadu 20; a young woman with chronic renal failure. She died yesterday at about 5pm at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Accra.

The authorities of the hospital had agreed to continue her treatment only yesterday after the Ghanaian Times published that they had earlier refused to care for her even though the Ministry of Health had given a guarantee to pick up the bill.

Just before she died, Eva made a last plea to her parent to ‘do everything possible for her to receive the dialysis or she would die.

Eva was diagnosed of the ailment about three months ago and for the past three weeks she had been on admission at the hospital without being attended to. Hospital authorities allegedly demanded money before the young woman could continue receiving treatment.

Her sister Gloria told the Times that even though they had sent C3million to the hospital for the treatment the authorities rejected it saying it was not up to the 8 million advance they had requested.

Hospital authorities said yesterday that they had decided to start the treatment but as at the time she died they had not started.

Head of the Department of Medicine, Professor A.R. Neequaye, had assured yesterday that the hospital would immediately start dialyzing Eva and subsequently submit the bill to the Ministry.

Prof. Neequaye said, Eva had been diagnosed of chronic renal failure, resulting from irreparable kidney damage.

Eva had to undergo a kidney transplant or the dialysis three times a week for the rest her life.

The cost of the treatment would be 100 dollars each time the dialysis was done, quite apart from having to buy a catheter at 150 dollars.
Prof. Neequaye explained that when Eva was brought to the hospital, the situation was put before the relatives. He explained that there were two types or renal failure - the acute and chronic.
In the acute renal failure the kidney would hopefully recover function within two to six weeks of dialysis after which the treatment would be stopped. But in the chronic case, if a kidney transplant were not done the patient would have to be on dialysis treatment for life.
According to Prof. Neequaye, alternatively, the chronic case could be treated ‘ conservatively’ that is treat ‘any ailment the person may develop but not the renal failure’ Kidney transplant, he said was not done at the Korle Bu hospital but in South Africa, Britain or America at a cost of about 80,000 dollars.
Meanwhile Ghana’s Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) has served notice that it is awaiting the full details of the case in order to open an investigation into the case which also borders on issues of human rights.