Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin has called on Parliament to summon the management of three major Accra hospitals before the Health Committee of Parliament (HCP) to answer for the death of 29-year-old engineer Charles Amissah, warning that prosecution must follow if investigations establish that negligence contributed to his death.
Afenyo-Markin, who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Effutu, made the call during floor proceedings on Tuesday, February 24, addressing Speaker Alban Bagbin directly. He named Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH), the Police Hospital, and the Greater Accra Regional Hospital, known as Ridge Hospital, as the three institutions whose management should appear before Parliament to account for their conduct on the night of February 6, when Amissah was turned away from all three facilities after being struck by a hit-and-run driver at the Nkrumah Circle Overpass in Accra.
The Minority Leader demanded that the HCP compel the hospitals to produce duty rosters and bed occupancy records for the night in question, which he said were essential to determine whether the institutions were in compliance with a 2018 Ghana Health Service (GHS) directive governing emergency admissions. He argued that documentary evidence of this kind was the only reliable basis on which Parliament could determine whether the no-bed explanations given to ambulance crews were accurate or whether a more serious failure had taken place.
“The Health Committee must investigate the circumstances surrounding this death and determine whether negligence occurred. Sanctions must follow if misconduct is established; prosecution if negligence is proven,” Afenyo-Markin said on the floor.
He also called on the Ghana Police Service (GPS) to intensify its investigation into the hit-and-run incident and bring the responsible driver to justice.
The parliamentary debate on February 24 produced several significant interventions on the same subject. Speaker Bagbin separately directed the HCP to consolidate all investigative reports from the Ministry of Health, Korle Bu, and other agencies into a unified parliamentary review. MP for Afadjato South Frank Afriyie also disclosed during the same sitting that he had personally been denied emergency hospital care until his wife identified him as a legislator, a revelation that deepened the political weight of the no-bed crisis debate.
Korle Bu has already interdicted two medical doctors and two nurses pending an internal investigation, and the Ministry of Health has constituted a seven-member committee to examine the conduct of all three hospitals. Afenyo-Markin’s call goes further, demanding formal parliamentary oversight and a legal accountability threshold that the internal hospital processes have not yet committed to meeting.
