Our Health Providers Who Accelerate Our Journey to the Life Hereafter
The news blew my mind, but I was only shocked and not surprised. Aflao came into the picture again. Not about the construction of an E-Block and a chief giving the president an ultimatum. This time is about making corrupt demands at the cost of a precious life.
Thirty-nine-year-old, Linda Adua, felt ill during the night and her nineteen-year-old son, rushed her to the Aflao Central Hospital. There, the nurses on duty would attend to her, only if she made a deposit GH¢ 400.00, when the maximum consultation fee paid in government hospitals is GH¢60.00? Anyway, the dying woman had the money but it was in her MoMo account.
The nurse said “No! Cash Only.” In the end, the sick woman was left unattended in a state built medical facility, and she passed on to the life hereafter.
In my opinion this is a glaring example of corruption. The kind of corruption that a politician will never get involved in.
If the woman was allowed to pay with MoMo, that transaction would have been registered and in view of any investigation, it will be impossible for the recipient to come our clean on this one.
If the woman paid in cash, it will be collected and either no receipt will be given to her or if she demanded, a receipt will be generated for her. A fake receipt of GH¢400.00 with nothing going to state coffers, or a genuine receipt of GH¢60.00 to be given out by a staff other than the two nurses. Here she will find it difficult to convince management that she departed with GH¢400.00.
The state is losing out in the billions every month through corruption in sectors other than political offices. I will always, make this analysis, that assuming we have five thousand political office holders, who on the average, swindle the state off GH¢ 1,000,000.00 a year, Ghana will lose GH¢5 billion.
Now, assuming we have five million public and private office holders, with each swindling the state off GH¢10,000.00 a year, Ghana will be losing GH¢ 50 billion. So, which sector is killing the country?
Back to this unprofessional conduct of those health workers in Aflao Central Hospital. The fact is that every staff should be held accountable to corruption because these wicked nurses could not have acted this way, if this irresponsibility is not the norm in the hospital.
One cannot imagine how people who voluntarily decided to join the health sector, got trained in the act of healing the sick, will watch on while a sick person brought to their care, die without even attending to her.
Corruption is now a canker quickly eroding the foundations of this nation and the health sector is no exception.
Doctors and nurses will watch and when it is obvious that a patient is about to die, within a few days, they will ask relatives to go and purchase the most expensive drugs from a specified pharmacy, giving them the hope that it will revive their dear one.
I had this personal experience, when I was made to buy the most expensive antibiotic, at the time my late wife was only days to depart this life. My hopes were high but she did not take a single dose of the over GH¢4,000.00 drug and passed on two days later.
Talking about this to friends and relatives who are medics abroad, they found it very absurd for any doctor to prescribe such a drug for someone with kidney failure. So, GH¢4,000.00gone, and my wife also left.
And even in the state of mourning, departments directly involved in the issue of death, could not be bothered but did all they could to mine gold from me.
The hospital mortuary attendants demanded GH¢1,000.00 as unofficial cost, the day before my wife’s body was to be taken for burial.
I was charged GH¢500.00 for death certificate which was to cost at most GH¢100.00 and I even paid extra GH¢150.00 to speed up the process. When I demanded receipt, I was politely told, that Birth and Death does not issue receipts for death certificates. Trust me, I got all my GH¢650.00 back.
Then came those health officers who were to take care of funeral and burial and I was charged and made to pay an under-the-table amount to cover purchasing of PPEs, because government had stopped supplying them, I was told.
At AMA to register the death of my wife, so that she could be buried. I was made to make an official payment of GH¢1,000.00 with receipt duly offered and was told the amount included cost of PPEs.
Many health workers are tarnishing the good name of the profession and with what happened in Aflao, I will suggest that a general overhauling of the system should take place so that those in the profession must know why they are there.
How can two nurses demand GH¢400.00 when consultation fee is about GH¢50.00? Assuming they do same to hundred patients a month, they will pay the state GH¢5,000.00 and split the remaining GH¢35,000.00, many times more than their monthly salary. And they say, politicians are the most corrupt.
Hon. Daniel Dugan
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect The Chronicle’s stance.
