Contractor dies at Nsawam hospital after receiving ‘wrong’ Anesthesia

The sudden death of a 54-year-old contractor Joseph Frimpong at the Nsawam government Hospital in the Eastern Region has triggered another issue of medical negligence on the part of nurses and doctors.

The deceased who personally drove to the hospital on Tuesday June 5, 2018 was admitted to undergo minor debridement of a developing diabetic foot ulcer but was allegedly administered general anesthesia instead of regional anesthesia which reportedly triggered cardiac arrest leading to his death on June 7,2018.

Sources at the Hospital claim a female doctor who was to carry the surgery scolded the anesthetic nurse over the death of the patient in the theater, a criticism which was heard by one of the children of the deceased who is also nurse by profession and was paying attention to the conversation between the two after he had come in to check on his father.

He told Starr News when he questioned the doctor on duty why general anesthesia was administered, the doctor said it was the nurse who was preparing the patient for the surgery hence cannot hold brief for her.

“On Thursday we were waiting for them to call us to the theater but they never called us so as 4:30pm a call came from the theater that they should prepare the client to the theater so we were waiting for Daddy to come back because it was not a major surgery on the left foot”.

He added: “so we were just there barely 10 minutes when the Doctor said she wants to have a discussion with me. Only for her to tell me that in the cause of preparing Daddy for the surgery he had a cardiac arrest, so I didn’t get it. So immediately I asked ‘which kind of anesthesia did you give; is it general anesthesia or spinal anesthesia’ and they said General anesthesia, and I was surprised because in such a minor surgery you need not give general anesthesia so I think my daddy’s body was not able to contain the anesthesia and then he had cardiac arrest at 5pm”.

According to the son “the family has decided to take it on but we are still deliberating over it. Not that we want to tarnish the image of the hospital but we are doing this because we want the best of healthcare and to curb unnecessary deaths out of medical negligence”

The widow, Kaakyire Adu told Starr News her late husband although diabetic, was healthy and went about his normal duties and therefore cannot comprehend with his sudden death.

She said the family wants the incident investigated by the Ghana Health Service.

The hospital is yet to respond to calls by Starr News for a comment.