The Ho High Court, presided over by Justice Rosemarie Afua Asante, has slapped the Central Aflao Hospital with a cost of GH¢5,000 for seeking to amend its defence statement late in the case in which the family of a caterer, Linda Adua, 39, has sued the hospital for medical negligence leading to her death.
Counsel for the plaintiff, Christian Lebrecht Malm-Hesse, had earlier objected to the application by the defence for the amendment, saying the case had suffered a lot of adjournments, and the timing of the application was unfair and likely to change the course of the case.
He said the granting of the leave for the amendment was at the discretion of the court and not an act of right.
Counsel for the plaintiff maintained the pleadings had closed and the rules were meant to avoid delays.
However, the defence counsel, T. K. Dzimega, said the amendment of pleadings and counter claims would rather help to prevent multiplicity of suits in the matter, maintaining the amendments would cause no bend to the case.
Granting the application, the court gave the defence two weeks to make the amendments.
Suit
The family of the deceased is seeking GH¢4million in general damages, compensation for loss of life, upkeep of surviving son and funeral expenses.
This comes after a preliminary investigative report by the Volta Regional Health Directorate of the Ghana Heath Service identified “institutional lapses, including unclear directives, lack of guidelines, weak monitoring, and over-reliance on locum staff, especially doctors and nurses”, which resulted in Ms Adua’s death.
The report was based on a petition to the President, Minister of Health, Ghana Health Service and the Medical and Dental Council, by the family of the deceased for justice.
Incident
The Central Aflao Hospital in the Ketu South Municipality in the Volta Region and two of its nurses on April 11, 2023, were said to have refused Ms Adua treatment unless cash was deposited, leading to her death.
The family said the pleas of the woman in agony and her 19-year-old son could not convince the nurses to accept mobile money payment for her treatment, leaving the patient unattended until she died.
The Medical and Dental Council and the Ghana Health Service swiftly responded to the petition and dispatched a team of investigators to the hospital to look into the matter.
The police also invited the two nurses cited in the case for interrogation.
An elder sister of the deceased, Abigail Adua, earlier told the Daily Graphic before the suit was mounted that at a point when Linda appeared to have died, the hospital asked her son to take her to a government hospital, where she was pronounced dead on arrival.
Hearing continues on May 19.