Two K'bu Heads Brawl

A Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon and the Head of the Cardiothoracic Centre at the Korle-bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH), Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng has initiated a GH¢ 2million suit against the Head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (DOBG), Professor E.Y. Kwawukume for defamation.

He is also seeking a perpetual injunction to restrain Prof. Kwawukume from publishing further defamatory matter and a perpetual injunction order to retract and apologize for the defamatory matters.

In his statement of claim, Prof Frimpong-Boateng stated that following the maternal death of a patient, on December 5, 2006, at the DOBG, a committee, which was chaired by Dr. T.K. Agble, was set up by the hospital to investigate the circumstances which led to her death.

The writ said in March 2007, after the committee had finished with its report, the defendant wrote to the Board Chairman of KBTH and distributed to the sector Minister and all the board members, and alleged that Prof Frimpong Boateng as the then Chief Administrator, "Uses Korle-bu money any how and manipulates individuals in an indiscrete manner"

It continued that the defendant also wrote that GH¢150,000 realized from a special levy on operated cases in DOBG has either been misused, misapplied or embezzled by either Prof. Frimpong-Boateng, or because the plaintiff had failed to heed to appeals to him to release some for the purchase of broken down instruments.

Further, the writ said the defendant falsely wrote that "Prof. Frimpong-Boateng runs the biggest private hospital in Ghana, probably in the sub-region, but nobody takes stock to see the damage he inflicts on Korle-bu and the country."

It intimated that the defendant falsely wrote that "the Cardiothoracic Centre at KBTH is a privately owned hospital in Korlebu, with Professor Frimpong-Boateng as the Director whose officers are paid by the Ghana Government and whose outgoings are absorbed by KBTH, but the proceeds from whose operations go directly into Cardio-thoracic fund, where it is used unilaterally by the Director who has a safe in his office where money is taken in and out without accountability, patients pay about $15,000 to $25,000 with other forms of donations going to the centre, without accountability."

The plaintiff has denied that he neither owns the Cardiothoracic Centre nor ever had a safe in his office, and no Ghanaian patient ever paid $15,000 or $25,000 at the centre which is audited yearly by external auditors appointed by the Government of Ghana.

The writ maintained that the defendant falsely wrote that he has privately "now established a renal (Kidney) and dialysis centre at Korle-bu, competing with the renal centre at the medical block", adding that this explains why the plaintiff has failed to complete the medical block.

Prof. Frimpong Boateng argued that under his tenure, the KBTH has established a well-equipped renal unit in the medical block, with the block itself rehabilitated to a very high degree at a reasonably low cost.

The plaintiff further said he has not privately established a laboratory, CT scan and X-ray centres as it was being alleged by the defendant, but rather when the CT scanner was imported for the Cardiothoracic Centre about two years ago, he directed that it should be given to the main X-ray Department of the KBTH.

The defendant also wrote that the plaintiff has a huge private hospital at Toase in Kumasi, and another at Okponglo, in Accra, and coerced doctors from Komfo Anokye Hospital to run the hospital for him, depriving that hospital of , and adding that these two hospitals were built by workers employed permanently or as part-time by Korle-bu.

The plaintiff denied having a hospital in either Okponglo or at Toase.

The writ said the defendant falsely wrote that the number of preventable deaths at maternity is enormous because of the actions and inactions of the plaintiff.

It stressed that the defendant knew or ought to have known that the false statements in his letter about him were false, but went ahead to publish them in a calculated move to injure the plaintiff's reputation personally, professionally and politically, and to lower him in the estimation of right thinking members of society.

In his statement of Defence, Prof. Kwawukume argued that the said words were published on an occasion of qualified privileges, and that as the Head of the DOBG he had a duty to prevent the spate of maternal deaths in his department, one of which resulted in he setting up of the said Agbley Committee.

It maintained that he had to know what had happened to the sum of GH¢150,000 generated by his department from user fees levied on patients who were operated upon in the department and how it was used and, therefore, had a corresponding duty and interest in the publication made to the persons concerned. The court case continues on April 20.