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“Medical negligence” victim demands compensation from Airport Women’s Hospital

A victim of alleged medical negligence is demanding compensation from the Airport Women’s Hospital after suffering diathermy burns on 1 July 2019 in the course of a caesarean section

A victim of alleged medical negligence, Adriana Esi Keku, who is a branding consultant, hair weave importer and stylist by profession, is demanding compensation from the Airport Women’s Hospital in Accra after suffering electrocautery burns from diathermy equipment on 1 July 2019, when she underwent a caesarean section.

Narrating her story on the Asaase Breakfast Show (ABS) on Asaase Radio, Adriana Esi Keku said on 30 June 2019 she was admitted at the Airport Women’s Hospital, in the Airport Residential Area of Accra, where she was scheduled to undergo a caesarean section on 1 July 2019.

She says the operation was duly performed on 1 July as scheduled. Upon gaining consciousness, however, she felt a sharp, burning sensation on her inner thighs. But she was told by one of the doctors on duty, that the sensation was the result of heat from a machine used during surgery.

Severe burns

Miss Keku says the doctor assured her that there was nothing to worry about. He subsequently applied cream and covered up the areas where she had felt the burning sensation.

Miss Keku said that the following day, while being attended to by a nurse, she realised that the burnt patches, as the doctor had put it, were in fact wounds or sores on both sides of her inner thighs. She immediately demanded that she see a doctor on duty to explain what had happened to her legs.

Adriana further said that she was discharged on 5 July 2019, instead of 3 July 2019, which had earlier been agreed on. This was because of the complication she described, caused by what she says is an act of negligence by the doctor on duty at the time of her operation.

“I asked the nurses that, ‘You know what? Give me my phone,’ in the morning when they came in to dress whatever it was, the wound … Then I took my phone and I lifted my leg and I took a video of what had happened to me. The nurse was just standing there and watching me.

“I saw two huge burns. I know what burns are, so I know the level in which they were. Honestly, it got serious,” Miss Keku told the host of the show Kojo Mensah.

“I was not given any explanation why I had suffered these burns, I did not even know the name of the machine. I was not told about it, I did not even know what had gone on,” Miss Keku said.

Lost confidence

Asked what her chief demands are, Miss Keku said she has decided to speak out for every other woman who has suffered from some form of medical negligence. No amount of money can restore her lost confidence, she said.

“Honestly, no, you can’t give me back my confidence down there. I don’t see how I am going to open myself up to get intimate with a man. But it can surely reduce my scar,” she said.

The acting registrar of the Ghana Medical and Dental Council, Dr Divine Banyubala, commenting on matters of medical negligence on the Asaase Breakfast Show, urged victims to apply to the regulatory body to have their experiences investigated and complaints addressed.

He regretted that hospitals in Ghana over the years have not made budgetary provision to cover compensation of patients who might suffer medical “misadventures” or negligence.

“There is no hospital in this country in whose budget you would find a note for things that go wrong or for negligence compensation; you won’t find one,” Dr Banyubala said.

He added that it is time for a national conversation to find an alternate dispute resolution pathway which will foreground, as part of its vision, the importance of learning from instances of medical negligence, so as to improve the regulatory framework for the medical profession.

Wilberforce Asare

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