Minister & DG Lied, They Must Apologise --Pratt Jnr

The Managing Editor of “The Insight” has asked the Minister of Health, Dr Kweku Afriyie and the Director General of the Ghana Health Services Prof Agyeman Badu Akosa to apologise to Ghanaians for not telling the truth in the Gladys Ampadu and the Ridge Hospital saga.

They had the resources at their disposal to be able to tell Ghanaians to truth but woefully failed to do so for reasons best known to them”, Pratt stressed in his reaction to the report of the Committee of Enquiry tasked to investigate the circumstances leading to the death of Gladys Ampadu at the Ridge Hospital in Accra in June last year.

Pratt also asked the Committee to apologise to Ghanaians for not “doing a good enough job”. According to him, “the Committee had a real opportunity to help unearth the problems that bedevil Ridge Hospital in particular and health delivery in general in the country and to recognize health delivery in Ghana but failed to avail itself of this very fine opportunity on account of the limitation of time.”

He however expressed the joy he had been vindicated by the Committee’s report which he had touched on the need for improvement of health delivery, adding that though the report did not go far enough on the issue, it provided the starting point for action.

Pratt said the Committee’s proposal that the body of the late Mrs Gladys Ampadu be exhumed to ascertain cause of death was an indictment of the Committee, the Ministry of Health and the Director General of the Ghana Health Service.

According to him the Committee’s reliance, in its investigations, on provisional diagnosis of the doctors who saw and treated Gladys Ampadu and pronounced her as having died of gastroenteritis was improper because the Committee was supposed to be independent and expected to arrive at independent findings.

Pratt submitted that, “the fact that the Committee decided to adopt the so called provisional diagnosis only confirms the fact the Committee either did not do its work well or simply decided to ignore the evidence in order to be able to arrive at the conclusion it had predetermined.”

He said the deceased’s mother who stayed at her bed side throughout her admission at the hospital together with the deceased’s husband told the Committee that the deceased never had diarrhoea at the time of her illness.

Pratt continued that the deceased’s mother told the Committee that throughout the deceased’s hospitalisation, she never spoke until she was about to die when she mentioned her husband’s name and her (mother’s) name and instructed that her children be taken care of.

“The Committee’s silence on this very important issue however is so loud that it breaks the ear”, Pratt complained. He wondered why the Committee was still talking about a provisional diagnosis which was not based on any evidence.

Pratt challenged the Committee for not being bold in stating that there was no evidence before it to support the diarrhoea diagnosis arrived at by the Health Ministry and the Director General of Health Services whereas, it (Committee) had the courage and unhesitatingly referred to Dr Kweku Sakyi Obuobi who apparently did not see the patient (deceased), but signed the medical cause of death certificate dated 10 June 2002.

He also cited the Committee’s reference to the doctors who attended to the deceased and did not diagnose her of typhoid fever, and the wider test which said “there is no evidence that Mrs Gladys Ampadu had peritonitis (from typhoid perforation) as stated on the medical cause of death certificate.”

Pratt asked: “which of the doctors who saw the deceased diagnosed her of diarrhoea? Who is deceiving whom? Is this a case of a Rush to Judgement?” “The Insight” Editor referred to the Committee’s recommendation of not being able to establish conclusively who might have removed the missing page from the surgical cases record book and questioned how come Mrs Ampadu’s name came to be associated with surgery records if she did not undergo surgery.

Pratt Jnr complained that Dr Afriyie told the nation that the Committee’s work was that of a public enquiry, and yet it (Committee) started work unannounced, and it was a week into its (Committee’s) working period that he (Pratt Jnr) was invited.

He said when he appeared before the Committee, he was asked not to publish the proceedings at the sitting. This, Pratt Jnr said, he regretted, for if he had published the proceedings, the public would have been fed the evidence emanating from the sittings which would have in turn inform the conclusion and recommendations of the Committee.

He said before and during the investigations, he made clear that the thrust of his publication was to draw attention to the lack of standby generator at the Ridge Hospital and its implications on the operations of the hospital.

But when the Health Minister announced the formation of the Committee of Enquiry, said Pratt Jnr, the terms of reference of the Committee “imposed a very severe constraint on its ability to be of help in finding solutions to the problems of the Ridge Hospital in particular and health service delivery in general”.

As the Editor of “The Insight”, Pratt Jnr stated that he accepted editorial responsibility for the paper’s contents, but resented what he termed as an attempt by the Ministries of Information and Health to personalize the issues.