Renowned Ghanaian physician and cardiac surgeon Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng has recounted the obstacles he faced while establishing Ghana’s Cardiothoracic Centre at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.
Returning from Germany to set up the country’s first Cardiothoracic Centre, Prof. Frimpong-Boateng expected support but encountered challenges, including sabotage attempts by fellow doctors.
During an interview on JoyNews on Friday, April 5, 2024, Prof. Frimpong-Boateng disclosed the struggles he endured, including being denied crucial resources and facing opposition from within the medical community.
“In the first few years, I was alone, taking blood from patients, taking them to the lab, and running all the errands that a housemaster should be doing. I did all these things, and people were just trying to make sure that things became tough, and we wouldn’t get on,” he revealed.
He further divulged a shocking revelation: some doctors conspired to cause patient deaths and frame him for the fatalities.
“Someone even suggested to the head of anaesthesia that they should go and fiddle with the equipment at the Intensive Care Unit so that when patients are put on them, they will die, and I would be discredited,” Prof. Frimpong-Boateng disclosed, adding that an anaesthetist exposed the sinister plot.
The anaesthetist, upon learning of the scheme, alerted Prof. Frimpong-Boateng, preventing potential fatalities and protecting his reputation.
“So the head of anaesthesia told him to put it on paper… Of course, he will not do it. So he [head of anaesthesia] came to me and said, Kwabena, be careful. And, of course, what that person (the doctor) did subsequently told me that I had to be very careful,” he noted.
After completing his medical studies in Ghana and advanced training in Germany, Prof. Frimpong-Boateng returned to Ghana, establishing himself as the nation’s first and only cardiothoracic surgeon for several years.
Despite his significant contributions to Ghana’s healthcare system, including numerous successful heart surgeries, Prof. Frimpong-Boateng expressed disappointment with the current state of the Cardiothoracic Centre and the lack of efforts to improve it.
In August 2011, Prof. Frimpong-Boateng was controversially dismissed as head of the Korle-Bu Cardiothoracic Centre, a move criticised by many as unjust.