Ghanaians are suing doctors every week because of these two

A recent comment by the Minister of Health, Dr Kwaku Agyeman-Manu revealed that the number of lawsuits against Ghanaian medical practitioners is on the rise. The minister said he has been receiving letters from the Attorney General to such effect in recent weeks. He said more Ghanaians are seeking legal redress for various medical infractions.

But causes the spike in lawsuits against medical professionals in the country? The minister revealed in his comments that there are two primary causative factors leading to the surge in lawsuits. The persons dragging the professionals to the courts are suing for medical negligence or problems with service delivery/medical care.

And what is medical negligence? According to Alllaw, medical negligence is “an act or omission (failure to act) by a medical professional that deviates from the accepted medical standard of care”. So any act or failure of a medical professional from the accepted standards that causes injury may constitute medical negligence.

As for problems with medical care or service delivery, these may all come under medical malpractice which by law is also criminal. Ghanaians have realized that they deserve more and are taking the decision to put the practitioners and their facilities on their toes. That is probably the reason for the surge in lawsuits.

According to the minister, his office almost gets a letter each week from the Attorney General’s office. People are suing staff or doctors at various facilities across the country.

“What I’m seeing in the Ministry are issues of litigations. For the past few weeks, almost every week, at least we get one letter from the Attorney General’s office. Somebody has sued a staff or doctor with problems with care or service delivery, and they want us to come out with information to go to court. Earlier on, when I came, the issues were not that much, but it’s becoming very common,” Agyemang-Manu.

The minister wondered what the problem could be and asked if it is a deliberate attempt to provide bad services to the public that is causing this.

“So what is it? Deliberate efforts to try to go to court? Or for us to go to court? Have we forgotten how we were trained to be professionals? Negligence or what’s happening? Since you are senior managers of care of what we do in health, discuss how these court matters can be resolved.”

He, however, reminded the professionals to take notice of the poor especially those dependent on the National Health Insurance Scheme for medical care. The minister urged medical practitioners to consider the needs of this group of people and deliver quality services to them as required.

“The poor woman in the rural areas who do not have money to pay for service, please begin to think of them as well. My plea is that NHIS delays, but why do we extort monies from the poor patients? You understand what catastrophic expenditures are.”