LifeStyle of 2026-08-27
Dear GhanaWeb: I treated the thief who stole my phone, but he still died in my care
Dear GhanaWeb,
I’m a 29-year-old nurse working at one of the reputable hospitals in Ghana, and what happened to me yesterday has left me deeply confused.
I was on the afternoon shift, and as I was walking to work with a colleague, two men on a motorbike suddenly approached us. Before I could even react, one of them snatched my phone, and they sped away.
My colleague witnessed everything, so she knew exactly what the thief looked like. A few hours later, we were informed that two men involved in a motorbike accident had been rushed to our hospital.
My colleague went to check and suddenly came back with shocking news. She had recognized one of them. It was the same man who had snatched my phone earlier that day. I honestly didn’t know how to feel. I was angry because he had stolen from me, but at the same time, he was now a patient who needed medical attention.
What made the situation even more uncomfortable was that I was assigned to attend to him. I treated his wounds and gave him the injections prescribed for him. Throughout the time I was attending to him, he didn’t recognize me. I also didn’t tell him that I was the person whose phone he had stolen.
As a nurse, I simply did my job. Later, I left him briefly to attend to something else. But when I returned, I noticed that his condition had changed. He was shaking badly and breathing heavily. We tried to manage the situation, but unfortunately, we lost him.
I was devastated and confused. My colleague then came to me and asked something that has been disturbing me ever since. She asked whether I had given him the wrong injection or done something to him because of what he had done to me earlier.
I immediately told her no. I would never intentionally harm a patient, regardless of what he had done to me outside the hospital. But now, I keep replaying everything in my mind.
Did I miss something? Did I administer something incorrectly? Could there have been another complication from the accident that caused his sudden deterioration?
I know I was only doing my job, but because I was the same person he had robbed just hours earlier, his death has left me questioning myself.
Could I have unknowingly done something wrong that caused his death, or was his condition already beyond my control? How do I go about this?
FG/EB
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