‘No bed’ death saga: We did no wrong – Lapaz Hosp.

The management of Lapaz Community Hospital has denied any wrongdoing in the death of a 62-year-old UK-based Ghanaian businessman.

Nana Amoako Attah was turned away by the 37, Police and Korle Bu Hospitals when he was rushed there from Lapaz Community Hospital.

Management of these hospitals explained there were no beds at the time. The deceased was referred to the Police Hospital, which in turn passed him on to Korle Bu which also rejected and drove him and the family away. The deceased was eventually brought back to the 37 Military Hospital where he eventually died on the floor.

The family of the deceased has questioned the circumstances under which he was discharged by the Lapaz Community Hospital, leading to his death on the same day.

“We went there [Lapaz Community Hospital] and I saw my brother’s condition was very bad but the doctor had left saying that he had discharged him. So we asked the nurses that what do we do now? And they said the doctor says he should go to 37 Hospital…. and he was in bad condition, but according to the nurse my brother needed blood and operation or something of that sort,” a sister to the deceased Adwoa Abramsamadu told Starr News.

But the doctor who attended to the deceased when he first reported to the Kisseman branch of the Lapaz Community Hospital has defended his handling of the patient. Dr. Yaw Boateng in an interview with Starr News’ Ibrahim Alhassan disclosed the patient was discharged to be taken to the 37 Military Hospital in a very stable condition.

“When the patient came, the history given was that he was weak, he had vomited about three times, and anorexic. So what I did was to, since he had been weak and ill and he’s not been eating well, so we just gave IV fluids and gave some drugs for the vomiting to stop and investigate into it because looking at the man even though they were giving that issue, you could see that the face was puffy.

“He also had a history of hiccups……So I went on to investigate because I wanted to know what was going on so we carried out some investigations, some of them couldn’t come in as at when we were around but the one that came out was the full blood count. The white blood count showed no infection but the HB was 6.5 (Blood Level) so I went on to ask the man, is it that he had been ill for some time now? That’s when he told me he’s been ill for the past three months and that he’s been to several hospitals.

“The patient was communicating well together with the family and he consented to whatever I was saying, not that he was very bad, he was communicating very well with me,” Dr. Boateng said.

Medical Director for the facility Dr. Joy Tetteh also refuted allegations from the family that the hospital only took huge sums of money from them without treating the patient.

“They did series of labs, I can mention them from the request form for you; they did the full blood count, Bf, they did the sugar test, they did the kidney test, liver test, hepatitis, Malaria, tests all that”.

The Health Minister Alex Segbefia and his deputy Dr. Victor Bampoh have since met the family of the deceased following Starr News’ report on the incident. The Ministry has subsequently commenced investigations into the actions of the 37, Police and Korle Bu Hospitals.

The family of the deceased has been tasked to furnish the Ministry with times of their visits to the facilities for action to be taken against the staff in question. The Ministry has in addition issued a directive to all health facilities not to turn any patient away under a ‘no bed’ excuse.