Ambulance Service admits charging deceased woman in labour ₵600 before transporting her

The probe into the death of Agustine Awortwe, a woman in labour who died in transit from Takoradi to Accra by the Parliamentary Select Committee has reached day 3.

It is alleged that the victim died due to negligence of the National Ambulance Service.

Before the committee on Monday, July 18, the Ambulance Service Department and the Fijai Holy Child Hospital were called.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ambulance Service Department, Professor Ahmed Zachariah, says the public was misled by the viral video which broke the story on social media as the video were excerpts of various shots of different events and did not paint the true picture of what led to the actual death of the victims.

He however admitted that officers demanded GH₵600 from the husband of a pregnant woman before agreeing to transport the patient.

Mr Zachariah told the Select Committee that although their services are supposed to be free, resource constraints have led them to charge patrons to cater for fuel.

“Because it was around the festivities, we were told they had exhausted their fuel. A communication went to the hospital that they didn’t have enough fuel, therefore they will need GH₵600 support of fuel.

“According to the crew, they were assured that they could move because the hospital was going to arrange either directly or indirectly with the family of the patient to get the fuel support. So the impression was that the husband of the patient was going to provide that support,” he said on Monday.

He further added, “so they left the hospital with the understanding that they would pick the husband who was going to provide the fuel support they arrived at the point of picking up the patient’s husband and they discovered that he didn’t have the money to fund for fuel.”

He further explained that the death of Augustina Awortwe can not be attributed to necessary to the lack of 600 Ghana Cedis for fuel.

Mr Zachariah explained that the woman died from several medical complications. Here are the details of what he said.

First to appear before the committee was the husband of the deceased.