General News of Thursday, 23 April 2015

Source: starrfmonline.com

Woman dies as ambulance driver deserts post at 37 Hospital

A 38-year-old woman died at the 37 Military Hospital after an ambulance driver abandoned post to go and party.

Starr News understands the incident happened on Easter Monday.

Officials at the 37 Military Hospital in Accra have served notice they are investigating the case of medical negligence.

The patient died because the ambulance attendant who was supposed to convey her to another hospital deserted post for an Easter Monday picnic.

Relatives of the deceased [name withheld] are angry over the case and are threatening to sue the 37 Military Hospital.

The National Development Planning Commission (NDPC) has taken the case up and demanding answers from the hospital authorities. According to the Director General of the NDPC, Dr. Nii Moi Thompson, someone must answer for the negligence.

“This was supposed to be one of the leading medical facilities in the country, so you can imagine what is going on in other parts of the country where facilities are less endowed. We are going to put a spotlight on maternal mortality because it is our source of life. Without our mothers where will we be?” Dr Thompson asked.

He added: “All these people claim in one way or the other to be religious people. They say they are Christians. They are bogus Christians because they don’t practice what they preach. How do you leave an ambulance on the day you are supposed to work and go to a picnic?

“They had to do a lot of cajoling to get this individual to drive the ambulance. There is something wrong severely with the setup and we’ll make a formal complaint to the Ghana Health Service and the Ministry of Health to investigate. They should tell us what happened.”