Doctors at LEKMA stay away from duty

Accra, Feb. 22, GNA - Doctors attending to out-patient cases at the newly opened LEKMA Hospital at Teshie, near Accra, on Monday morning stayed away from duty in protest over assault by some unruly elements on a colleague the previous night.

The doctor on duty was not injured in the attack, but colleague doctor= s on the morning shift decided to withhold their services, to press home the need for an additional security in the hospital. Dr Antwi Boasiako, the Medical Officer in Charge of the hospital said Thursday evening that, the doctors decided to go back to work after he had assured them of beefing up security. There have been some threats on medical personnel by some elements, allegedly from the community, over supposed delay in the treatment of out patients.

At least, there have been two attacks on medical personnel in the hospital, within the last four weeks.

The doctors after the Monday night incident maintained that, the place was unsafe for work, and that they did not know when the next attack would be, and threatened to stay away from duty until their security was ensured. Dr Boasiako told the Ghana News Agency that an unruly element on Monda= y evening hit a doctor, who allegedly delayed in treating a patient, who sustained some injuries in a scuffle between two groups of people at the hospital.

According to the doctor a crowd of people thronged the hospital to sympathise with an accident victim, who was brought there. Soon there were exchanges of words among the crowd during which a man was hit and injured.

While the doctor on duty attended to the accident victim, his reliever soon arrived and met the man who wounded.

The crowd yelled at the doctor, who was to relieve his colleague, to quickly attend to the wounded patient, before someone from the crowd assaulted the doctor.

Following a report over the incident, Dr Boasiako directed that the patient be referred to the La General Hospital. He expressed dismay at the behaviour, and ordered a security beef up. Additionally, the hospital is stepping up education on proper communit= y and public behaviour to ensure better co-operation between the hospital and the community.