‘Oxygen Doctor’s Action Unacceptable – GHS

The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has said it is wrong for a health official to cut oxygen supply to a patient over bills if the patient has a chance of surviving.

“… If you believe that the person will survive and you take off the oxygen mask because the child’s father or mother could not afford to pay, then it is unacceptable,” Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Anthony Nsiah-Asare told Accra-based Joy FM on Wednesday in connection with a case at the St. Gregory Hospital in Kasoa, Central Region, where a nine-week-old baby died after a doctor allegedly ordered that oxygen supply to the child be cut over his parents’ inability to pay a bill of GHS533.

Dr Asare said the GHS will launch an investigation into the matter.

If found culpable, the Doctor in question will be punished, he promised.

Little Prosper had been on admission at the hospital since 5 March due to difficulty in breathing, until his death three weeks later.

The child’s mother, Sefakor, had said that the hospital had intentions of transferring the little patient to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital.

Before the Doctor on duty pulled the plugs on the oxygen machine, Sefakor said he had asked her if her husband, Kennedy Kwao, was making efforts to pay the bill.

On that fateful Saturday, she narrated, the Doctor came and enquired from her if she had heard from the child’s father concerning the money for the bill.

Source: ClassFMonline