Health News of Thursday, 20 June 2013

Source: Joy Online

Police suspect negligence in death of patient at KATH

Police in Kumasi say they are not ruling out official negligence over the death of a 43-year old patient who jumped from a storey building at Komfo Anokye Hospital.

Akwasi Owusu Ansah died on the spot after crushing to the ground from the third floor of a hospital block on Tuesday. It is the second of such incidents in in less than two years.

Earlier a Principal Revenue Officer of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly, Agnes Ntim, died when she jumped from the fifth floor of the D-Block of the hospital.

Though hospital authorities deny any wrongdoing in both incidents, police say they may have cases to answer as investigations continue.

Assistant Public Relations Officer, Sergeant Godwin Ahianyo, told Nhyira News police are awaiting postmortem report on the latest incident.

“Investigators and the crime scene management team were there. They’ve taken various evidential materials from there…We have just commenced investigations so allow the investigators to conduct their investigations so if it so happens that it is true that probably it is out of something that caused this patient to fall from that window, why not, we are going to make those recommendations. We will look at all aspects,” Sergeant Ahianyo said.

Many of the windows on the old Gee Block are either without louver blades or have no metal railings, exposing patients to danger.

Sergeant Ahianyo, however said, police will not hesitate to recommend to hospital authorities to fix the problem.