A woman identified as Rev. Dr. Nana Yaa Owusu-Prempeh has shared how the failure of the Ghana Ambulance Service to swiftly respond to her family’s critical situation caused the death of her 27-year-old nephew.
In a video which has gone viral on social media, Dr. Owusu-Prempeh averred that the ambulance service was not responsive at the time her nephew, Nana Ayeyi Agyei Benua, needed to be transported to the hospital after falling in the bathroom.
After Nana Ayeyi lied helplessly on the floor for about 30minutes without any success with the Ambulance Service, his father, whose name Dr Owusu-Prempeh gave as pastor Chris, drove him to the hospital around 12:30 am on May 23, 2020.
“His father, Pastor Chris called the ambulance service 112. The gentleman asked him, which region are you calling from, which area and so many questions. I thought this ambulance service has GPRS that’s supposed to know where you are calling from but that’s not the case…six minutes later, the boy was still on the ground.”
Upon their arrival at the hospital, she averred that the doctor at the emergency ward pronounced her 27-year-old nephew dead without bothering to examine him.
According to her, “The doctor comes out and says that my nephew is dead and take him to the mortuary just like that and I said no way. Don’t you have to check his vital signs, don’t you need some parameters, don’t you need to give him some kind of a shock to resuscitate him?"
“I have no problem accepting the death of a family members, but you have to do the right thing. You need to check his vital signs. I made them to check his sugar, it was 9.4. I said you didn’t even check his pressure or anything. You just opened his eyes, looked in his eyeball, and said his eyes have died and that’s enough to pronounce someone dead?” she quizzed.
Dr. Owusu-Prempeh added that as she requested for oxygen for her dying nephew whom she believed wasn’t dead at the time, she was told the hospital was running out of stock on that and was preserving the few left for emergencies, an answer she couldn’t accept since her nephew’s situation was also an emergency.
She indicated that the KBTH hospital was still struck with no bed syndrome.
She also made a claim that the world-known hospital did not have hand sanitizers at vantage points, especially, at the emergency ward for people to use in a bid to fight the deadly coronavirus.
Dr. Owusu-Prempeh said, “I want sanitizers to wash my hands, they have no sanitizers at the emergency room at the Korle-Bu Teaching hospital.”
She noted that Ghanaian abroad are reluctant to come back to Africa, especially Ghana because they are aware that the systems in the country, especially in the health, sector are very poor.
Authorities at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital have, however, reacted to the video, stating that the allegations levelled against the outfit rest more on the emotional display of the loss of her nephew than the reality of it.
The hospital noted that her nephew was brought in already dead.
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