Manhyia South Member of Parliament (MP), Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, on Tuesday called for an “appropriate and wide-ranging inquiry” into the missing baby saga at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi.
The missing baby saga, the opposing MP said, “…should not” be taken in “isolation”. He told MPs, the missing baby saga “might be a symptom of a cancer happening in Komfo Anokye [Teaching Hospital]; It might be a failing management in Komfo Anokye [Teaching Hospital].”
The Manhyia South MP was contributing to a statement read on the missing baby saga by Majority Chief Whip, Mohammed Muntaka Mubarak, who called for “deeper” national investigations into still births and missing babies around the country.
“Mr. Speaker…I rise to support this statement because I have in the last 13 months in my personal life suffered some deaths as a result of Komfo Anokye [Teaching Hospital]. That is not the issue but we should look at why hospitals are failing Ghanaians in this country,” Dr. Opoku Prempeh, an MP from Kumasi, said.
The seeming mystery surrounding the disappearance of at least five babies born recently at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital has provoked national outrage, after one expectant mother went public with the loss of her baby boy.
Doctors have claimed that Suweiba’s baby boy died at birth but have failed to produce his remains. Police investigations have established that apart from Suweiba’s baby, the hospital has failed to account for four other babies delivered around the same time at the Hospital. A number of hospital workers have since been dragged to court to face criminal charges.
Dr. Opoku Prempeh said “it is sad” that in spite of “all the protocols and procedures” regarding childbirth, Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital recorded such a mystery of missing babies.
“The matter is not punishment. The matter is reform to make the right decisions at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital,” he added.
He suggested that it was possible that babies of expectant women who went to the hospital to deliver may have been swapped with dead babies and that only a “public inquiry” can establish the truth.
Earlier, Asawase MP, Mohammed Muntaka Mubarak, whose constituency hosts the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, echoed public calls for probe into the missing baby saga.
He said, “Mr. Speaker, there is need for deeper investigation to be done …in all the regions of Ghana for persons who might have suffered the same fate as Suweiba to come out; so we will be better informed as to how to restructure our facilities to prevent this” from happening again.
Earlier, Suweiba told Citi FM in an exclusive interview that she believed her baby “is alive” and not dead as claimed by hospital authorities.
In her words, “The way the hospital authorities and everybody involved in the matter are having different sayings I am convinced that my baby is alive.”
By: Richard Dela Sky/citifmonline.com/Ghana