Health Minister Kwaku Agyemang-Manu has criticized the frequency with which the general public sues medical personnel for alleged subpar care and malpractice at specific hospitals in the nation.
At a meeting in Kumasi, Mr. Agyemang-Manu addressed senior Ghana Health Service management and mentioned that his office had just received letters from the Attorney General’s office from people suing medical professionals for some services they provided.
The concerned minister claimed that such incidents were increasing in frequency.
“What I’m seeing in the Ministry are issues of litigations. For the past few weeks, almost every week, at least we get one letter from the Attorney General’s office. Somebody has sued a staff or doctor with problems with care or service delivery, and they want us to come out with information to go to court. Earlier on, when I came, the issues were not that much, but it’s becoming very common”.
He therefore pondered if it was a case of lack of professionalism or negligence on the part of healthcare providers.
“So what is it? Deliberate efforts to try to go to court? Or for us to go to court? Have we forgotten how we were trained to be professionals? Negligence or what’s happening? Since you are senior managers of care of what we do in health, discuss how these court matters can be resolved”.
He also tasked the health care providers to ensure the National Health Insurance Policy achieves the purpose for which it was initiated.
“The poor woman in the rural areas who do not have money to pay for service, please begin to think of them as well. My plea is that NHIS delays, but why do we extort monies from the poor patients? You understand what catastrophic expenditures are,” the Health Minister complained.