The late Charles Amissah
The action taken by the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) against two doctors and same number of nurses following their turning away of a hit-and-run victim is blemish-less.
The action and a promised probe into the indifference suspected to have been exhibited by the health delivery professionals should serve as an appropriate deterrent to doctors and nurses with such proclivity.
The victim, an engineer, eventually died as a result of the denial of care by the facility, which is inconceivable.
Two other facilities – the Police Hospital and the Greater Accra Regional Hospital (Ridge), reportedly, equally turned away the victim.
While KBTH turned away the victim because there was no bed, the reasons for the others doing same is unknown, but there can be no justification for all the three facilities denying admission for the man who needed emergency treatment under the circumstances.
The Ghana Health Service (GHS) and the Police Administration should, as a matter of urgency, demand answers to why their facilities denied the accident victim attention when that could have saved his life, even if he was put on a mattress on the floor.
Although the management of the three health facilities were not aware about the unprofessional and pitiless conduct of their staffers, it is our position that they cannot escape public opprobrium.
If public health facilities were established to serve the public and, therefore, dependent upon internally sourced funds to operate, patients should not be left unattended to for lack of money or bed unavailability.
Even private facilities, out of humanitarian considerations or unwritten convention, should under life-and-death situations render emergency care to patients who find themselves in their facilities gratis, let alone public facilities which are somewhat dependent upon state funds.
It is incomprehensible that an accident victim on the verge of death would be turned away from a public health facility simply because there are no beds. Are we serious?
Where has empathy gone to in this country where most citizens are Christians and Muslims? Will the health personnel who turned away the hit-and-run victim do same to their family members who find themselves in a similar situation?
Even under the Nuremburg Convention, enemy combatants during war are entitled to treatment and respect by their captors, a fact which underscores respect for human life. During combat when soldiers are engaged in exchange of fire, shooting to kill is allowed not so however when personnel surrender or are captured and rendered Prisoners-of-War.
When therefore outside the foregone circumstance health personnel turn away an accident victim the way the subject under review was reported, there is cause for concern and posing of questions.
The development prompts the issue of how some health personnel interact with patients in our health facilities.
While some personnel exhibit the highest professional standards, others do not, preferring to vent their frustrations on patients they have sworn to treat regardless of their circumstances.
The avoidable death of Charles Amissah points at a fault line in our health delivery management, which calls for a reversal.
It is commendable therefore the proposal by Parliament for an Emergency Care Law.