The host of Newsfile, and private legal practitioner Samson Ayenini has expressed pain over what can best be described as institutional failure leading to the death of an elderly man who needed urgent medical attention.
Read the rest of his post from his Facebook wall.
Mr. Samson Lardi Anyenini
Pray – This lady was introduced to me a couple of months ago. Her dad was seriously sick it affected his brain and speech. Her family needed to access his bank account to cater for him after spending all they had on him while on admission.
They got a power of attorney blabla but the bank does not work with that and needed a court order appointing someone as his guardian. This is when I came in (pro bono), spoke with bank and had to prepare court processes and filed in court. Sought a quick hearing but someone didn’t appreciate the urgency and got case scheduled for a later date.
Well, I argued the case before a rather helpful lady-judge and got a grant subject to an independent doctor’s report (a 2nd report) on current condition of the man. Court appointed State hospital in Accra to do that job. It took weeks to get court officers to type out what could have been done in minutes to be sent to the hospital.
Then back and forth with the hospital and after a month or so upon receipt, its assigned doctors will not reach out to this man’s doctors in the next region (they needed the very sick man physically here in Accra to examine him. Yeah, best practice, but in this tech age?).
Man was brought last week but could not be attended to fully because they were unable “to assess his cognitive functions because he was unwell and couldn’t speak”. But this is exactly a major part of his suffering? He was returned and brought back today “but unfortunately just before the assessment, he started gasping for air and we lost him”. I am sad. I feel this family’s pain. He just may have lived. May he rest well?
