Who Investigates the Death of the Ordinary Ghanaian?

It is good to see that even in a country where no rule seems to work, directives can be implemented immediately. Anyone who doubted that has been proved wrong by the case involving the wife of Deputy Minister of Energy, Alhaji Inusah. As soon as the death occurred, the IGP ordered that investigation be conducted since the woman supposedly died “through the negligence on the part of some medical staff”. Barely forty hours after the order, the Director General of Police Intelligence and Professional Standards Board Bureau (PIPS), DCOP Timothy Ashiley, informed Ghanaians in the March 23rd edition of the Daily Graphic that “with the exception of one more person to be talked to, a lot had been done by way of preliminary investigations”. He assured the general public there would be findings before the day ended.

That statement implies the efficiency of the police investigative machinery; in spite of the sad circumstances, Ghanaians can only commend the Service for such speedy action. However, that commendation would also raise issues concerning similar cases and the pathetic pace at which they are investigated. What about the young girl who died because nurses ignored her calls for attention? What about the mother whose baby was stolen at the hospital a year ago? And the mother who recovered from her caesarian section only to be informed that her son had died, and her grandmother had claimed the body for burial, even though she never gave a grandmother’s name as the next of kin and there was no record of the said grandmother? When she was hinted that a certain female employee in the ward had formed the habit of stealing newly born babies so she could sell them; she probed but she could not get an investigation started by the hospital. The case is over three years now; all she knows is that CHRAJ intends to take it up. When, she cannot tell What about the mother who died because a hospital did not have drugs because suppliers could not deliver due to delays in payment of health insurance claims? And the patient who died through side effects from medication he was taking because his doctors never bothered take routine tests that could have alerted them to the possible fatal outcome of his medication? Oh the list could go on!

Considering the high (maternal) mortality rate in the country, it is rather sad when one death is given urgent attention, giving the impression that some Ghanaians are worth more than others. Regardless of the circumstances surrounding her death, and the level of resources of the institution in which the death occurred, more tragic cases occur daily, and at an unacceptably alarming rate throughout the country’s hospitals and clinics. How many of such cases are locked up in police investigation years after occurrence?

Every Ghanaian deserves to benefit from the professionalism of the police. Dear IGP, please dive deeper into your cabinets and old files if you really mean well, for a preventable death is the real human tragedy. After all, the ordinary Ghanaian voter elevated Alhaji Inusah to the rank of a minister, therefore, the ordinary person is also worth attention!