Ambulance Service demands postmortem on woman who died in transit

The Western and Western North Regional National Ambulance Service has asked for a postmortem on 31-year-old, Augustina Awortwe, who lost her life while in transit after delivery at the Holy Child Catholic Hospital at Fijai in the Western Region.

Speaking to Kwame Malcolm of Empire News, the Regional Coordinator of the National Ambulance Service, Dr. Tawiah Siameh said the incident raises questions that require answers.

“I think a lot of things happened at the Hospital (Holy Child Catholic Hospital, Fijai) and that is where the delay arose. We must admit that it happened that they did not even get to Cape Coast when the woman started deteriorating thereby raising a lot of questions.

In what state was the woman? Because if the woman is in a very critical state, I would have suggested that at Effia Nkwanta Regional Hospital, we have obstetricians and gynecologists and even a consultant obstetrician-gynecologist who could have sorted this thing out at that level,” he opined.

He explained that “even if the intensive care is not ready we have a high dependency unit which could have sorted this woman up to a certain level before she is further transported as there are ramps along the way and traffic that pose great complications and risks.

“We could have sorted this woman to be stable enough so I think there are a lot of questions. We are therefore suggesting that a post mortem be done. Yes, the Ambulance aspect remains an allegation and it will be investigated. But we need to find out why we needed to move this woman in the first place and what happened since we are still in the dark on that aspect.”

Meanwhile, John Obiri Yeboah, the husband of the deceased, has called for an investigation into the circumstances that led to the demise of his wife.

In his narrations, Mr. Yeboah wondered why an ambulance attendant could tell his colleague to use the time of the wife’s death; 8:37 pm; to stake the lotto.