The Greater Accra Regional Director of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Akosua Agyeiwa Owusu-Sarpong, has dismissed claims a three-day-old baby died at the Tema General Hospital in the evening of Tuesday, March 26, due to a power outage.
Dr Akosua Owusu-Sarpong explained that investigations from the hospital confirmed a power outage on Tuesday evening, during which their generators initially functioned but later encountered a fault that took approximately two hours to rectify.
In an interview with JoyNews on Thursday, March 28, Dr Owusu-Sarpong stated that hospital machines/equipment had power storage, ensuring continuous treatment of patients/babies on monitors or oxygen during the power outage.
She stressed that despite the blackout, all monitors in the ward where the babies were housed remained operational.
“So if a baby died, it is not as a result of the baby not receiving the necessary care as a result of the power outage because all the machines were working,” she clarified.
She maintained that the unfortunate passing of the three-day-old child at the Tema General Hospital on Tuesday evening could not have resulted from the power outage.
The Greater Accra Regional Director of the GHS stated that all the babies in the facility who needed oxygen received one.
“So the storage in the various equipments were working and every baby on that ward received the necessary treatment and support each baby was supposed to receive,” she said.
Meanwhile, Rashida Abubakar Tetteh, the grieving mother of the three-day-old baby, has spoken out about the tragic loss of her child, which she blames on the Tuesday, March 26 power outage.
The 24-year-old mother, currently admitted to the Post C-S ward of the hospital, recounted her heart-breaking experience during an interview on Adom FM’s morning show Dwaso Nsem on Thursday, March 28.
She revealed that, when she went to see her newborn son, a doctor told her the child could not survive due to the non-functional medical equipment during the power outage.
“I went to visit my son but I didn’t see him. I was waiting outside when one doctor came to inform me that they were sorry but due to the lights out, my child could not survive because the incubator was not working.
“The lights went off on Tuesday evening. No staff has spoken to me, and they haven’t said anything to me, she narrated.
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