Woman Dies In Ambulance As Husband’s Inability To Fuel Vehicle

A 31 year old woman, Augustina Awortwe has lost her life in ambulance after undergoing caesarean section at Holy Child Catholic Hospital in Fijai, Takoradi after her husband’s inability to fuel the ambulance at hospital to transport her to the Korle Bu Teaching hospital in the Accra. John Obiri Yeboah, the husband of the deceased

narrating the incident also indicated that his wife had reported to the hospital on January 3 expecting to give birth on the Tuesday the January 4, 2022. He said after leaving his wife in the care of her sister at the hospital he left for his house at Shama Junction. According to Obiri Yeboah, I was there when the sister called that my

wife’s situation had become very critical and they were preparing to transfer her to Korle-Bu hospital, so I was surprised, a few minutes later I received a call, I think it was the Ambulance Service team asking where i was and I told them I was at the Shama Junction, which they asked me to wait and later picked me. He said after

joining the ambulance en route to the Korle-Bu, and upon reaching Assorkor Essaman they asked for 600 cedis to buy fuel and I told them I don’t have such an amount on me. He said he suggested to the ambulance team to cater for the refueling of the vehicle and later add the cost to the medical bill. He said the team

refused and had to stop the ambulance for a while at Assorkor Essaman, but he later managed to provide them 50 cedis which they used to purchase fuel. However, instead of continuing the journey to Korle Bu, they returned to the hospital at Fijai. Mr. Obiri Yeboah said as they returned to Fijai the medical team could

not understand why the ambulance had returned which became an argument between the medical team and the ambulance team, but later the hospital provided the money to purchase the fuel. This he said delayed the journey for close to thirty minutes, until they finally set off for Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra at around

6pm Tuesday evening. He says while on the journey, as they reached Elmina in the Central Region, the team informed him that his wife’s condition was becoming critical that needed immediate medical intervention; they then suggested to send her to the Cape Coast Teaching hospital. He says upon reaching the Cape

Coast Teaching hospital, even before his wife could be sent in for the said medical intervention, one of the personnel from the ambulance team informed him that his wife had died. He is therefore blaming his wife’s demise largely on the delay by the ambulance team and is prepared to seek legal redress. Meanwhile, when contacted on phone to ascertain what had happened at

the Holy Child Catholic Hospital, the hospital’s administrator Deborah Ayeley explained they cannot divulge any information about the incident to the media due to the Patients’ Charter. She said any such request must be a police request . The Regional Administrator of the Ghana Ambulance Service is however denying that the death was caused by a purported delay due to a demand for money to refuel the ambulance.