Korle-Bu refuses to test rapists...'No cash, no test'

In a front-page banner headline story, the Ghanaian Times says the controversy over who should pay for the cost of screening suspected and convicted rapists for HIV/AIDS and other sexually-transmitted diseases as ordered by an Accra Circuit Tribunal, was brought to the fore yesterday. The paper says when two convicted rapists, Kweku Abeka, 20, a steel bender and Isaac Kofi Acheampong, 19, a farmer, as well as Charles Lamptey, who is standing trial for rape were sent by the police to undergo the test, authorities at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital refused to attend to them. The fee of 28,000 cedis for each test was to be paid in full.

The Times says the rapists, who were taken from the James Fort Prison in Accra, were first driven to the Haematology Department where a medical officer in apparent anger, barked at the police to "take your letter elsewhere and look for assistance".

The paper says at the Public Health and Referral Laboratory, officials there too refused to attend to them, with the explanation that the laboratory only offers free screening for patients on admission and others certified as being indisposed. "The rape suspects or their relatives must pay for the tests. We did not ask them to go and do, besides, the courts are aware that these tests must be paid for anyway", the officials are quoted as saying.