St Joseph’s Hospital alleged fraud saga... : Prof. Akosa says investigations unneccesary
The Chairman of the Child Malnutrition Foundation, the group which brought the Operation Walk team to Ghana to perform surgeries on people with arthritis, Prof. Agyeman Badu Akosa, has described calls for investigations into the alleged extortion of money from patients at the St Joseph’s Hospital as unnecessary, insisting that there has been no act of corruption.
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He explained that the issues came about because of miscommunication that led to the health authorities telling the patients to pay GHc6,000 which has been resolved.
“It is not money going into anybody’s pocket. We are treating this issue as if someone has committed a heinous crime,” he told the Daily Graphic.
Prof. Akosa said the hospital agreed to refund GH¢5,000 to all the patients, while the remaining GH¢1,000 was kept for cost incurred by the hospital, including laboratory and X-ray costs.
What happened
Going into the issues, he said the foundation, which is a charitable foundation set up by Gentle Giants, importers of Vitamilk, had brought the Operation Walk team into the country from the US to conduct free knee and hip replacement surgeries for the needy.
He said the team agreed that the St Joseph’s Hospital had the facilities and the surgeries could be done for free, since “they brought almost everything they needed for the operation, so that the hospital would not incur any cost”.
However, he noted that for proper medical services, the team had said that certain laboratory tests should be done and assumed that as was the case in the US, every hospital should be able to run such tests.
But most of the laboratory tests, including Echocardiography, which could not be done in the hospital, had to be brought to Accra.
“But unknown to Child Malnutrition and the Operation Walk team, the hospital had met as a local management team and determined that there was going to be feeding, X-ray, laboratory and physiotherapy costs.
“They had agreed that every patient should prepare and come with GHc6,000. If they had discussed it with us, we would have sorted it out somehow,” he said.
Prof. Akosa, who is a former Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, said when he heard about the issue, he drove to Koforidua, where all the stakeholders met and it was pointed out to the hospital management that the payment of fees was not part of the agreement.
“But the hospital pointed out that it had to incur laboratory, X-ray and other costs for the surgery. Everything done in hospital in Ghana is costed and charged to NHIS or hospitals in Ghana and Operation Walk was not going to pay for those services. The team assumed that those things are covered by insurance.
“We decided that we should give back GH¢5,500 to the patients for the hospital to keep GH¢500 but the hospital pointed out that once its theatres would be encumbered, they would not be generating any income to manage the hospital, which is a very genuine concern,” Prof Akosa pointed out.
He said 46 patients had their surgeries carried out, saying the remaining patients had been in conditions that would not allow them to be operated upon.
Prof. Akosa stated that the surgeries in question had been very expensive because of the implants involved.
“There is a doctor from the United Kingdom who comes to the country to do similar surgeries for GH¢25,000,” he added.
Next year
“We know that next year they will be here. The reports have blown the issue out of proportion such that it is creating bad blood between the various parties, but as far I am concerned, if St Joseph does not host Operation Walk, there is no hospital in this country that has the facilities and experience in orthopaedic work to handle it.
“We are in touch with Operation Walk and they have assured us that they will be here next year. This is the first time they have come to Ghana; teething problems were bound to happen,” he added.
Dr Akosa appealed to corporate Ghana and philanthropic organisations to support the project next year to ensure that the hospital would not depend on patients’ contribution but everything would be free.