Chief Executive of the National Ambulance Service (NAS) has justified the GH₵600 officers of his outfit demanded from the husband of a pregnant woman before agreeing to transport the patient to the Korle-Bu teaching hospital in Accra.
According to Ahmed Nuhu Zakaria, the demand was to address resource constraints.
Explaining circumstances that led to the demise of the woman to the ad-hoc committee constituted by Parliament to investigate the incident, the Professor stated that the money was needed to fuel the vehicle that was supposed to transport her to the hospital in Accra.
However, failure to provide the money compelled personnel from the service to return the patient to the Holy Child Clinic in Fijai.
“Because it was around the festive season, and also during that time we were still in the Covid era, there were a lot of activities at the station level. We were told they had exhausted their fuel and a communication went to the hospital that they didn’t have enough fuel and therefore they will need GH₵ 600 support of fuel.
“According to the crew they were assured that they could because the hospital was going to arrange that either directly or indirectly with the family of the deceased and the understanding was that they would drive to the hospital and be able to get the fuel support,” he said.
He further explained that “when they [ambulance crew] got there [Holy Child Clinic] they picked the patient and the impression was that the husband of the patient was the one who was going to provide the fuel support. So they left the hospital with the impression that the husband of the patient was the one who was going to provide the fuel support.”
However, on arrival at the point where they were supposed to pick the husband, they discovered that he did not have the money to be able to fuel the car.
At this point, “they had gotten to a point where they did not really have enough fuel to be able to travel all the way to Accra so when they asked the husband he had GH₵150 with him and they realised that, that was not going to be enough. They needed what will be able to get them back to the hospital,” he stressed.
Mounting a defense for the personnel involved in the incident he stated that “if we go straight and we just talking about GH₵ 600 definitely we will not be doing justice to this particular case because from the pre-hospital perspective any time there’s a mortality you have to always go behind the scenes and find out what was really the issue.”
Doctors at the Holy Child Clinic at Fijai referred Augustina Awotwe to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra because she developed complications after a caesarean section.
The patient, 30-year-old nursing mother, Augustina Awortwe, died whilst in transit due to the delay on the part of the officers of the Service. The husband, Obiri Yeboah, said the journey to the KBTH was cut short because the ambulance driver demanded GH₵600 to buy fuel. When he explained that he could not afford that amount, the ambulance driver drove back to Fijai.
Following this, Parliament set up a bipartisan committee to probe circumstances that led to the death of a pregnant woman.
The Speaker, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin directed the Committee to within five weeks submit its report to the plenary.
Meanwhile, the Minority members on the Committee, led by Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, want the ambulance personnel interdicted, pending investigations and corrections of such anomalies.
Source: The Independent Ghana