St. John Hospital & Fertility Centre has threatened legal action against the state’s new outlet, Ghana News Agency (GNA) for a reportage described as “Slanderous Publication”.
This comes at the back of a widely circulated publication captioned “Couple sues St. John Hospital & Fertility Centre for GH¢5m over alleged negligence” and sourced by the GNA.
According to the esteemed fertility centre, through their legal executives Oak & Wuuds Law, GNA did a one-sided publication without hearing their side of the false allegation which seeks to “tarnish the brand of our client as a leading provider of health care services in the country.”
Couple’s claims
The couple, Mr. Ekow Andoh and Mrs. Sandra Tekyiwaa Sackey, in their statement of claim, prayed the court for a declaration that St. John Hospital & Fertility Centre is vicariously liable for the medical negligence of its employee health workers since their negligent omission and commission caused their baby to be diagnosed with severe asphyxia and subsequently led to the baby’s death.
According to Oak & Wuuds Law – “We wish to emphatically state that our client and its health workers exercised reasonable care in accordance with the established standards and protocols accepted in the medical profession in their duty to Mrs. Sandra Tekyiwaa Sackey from her antenatal to the delivery of her baby.
St. John Hospital & Fertility Centre through their lawyers want GNA to with immediate effect retract and apologize for the fallacious publication.
“We are by this letter requesting that you retract that publication and render an unqualified apology to our client through the same medium on or before the 15th of December 2023 to render unnecessary any further action from our client.”
Read the full statement from St. John Hospital & Fertility Centre’s lawyers
RE: “COUPLESUE ST.JOHN HOSPITAL &FERTILITY CENTER FOR GH¢5 MILLION OVER ALLEGED NEGLIGENCE”.
We act as solicitors for and on behalf of St. John’s Hospital and Fertility Centre (our Client) and have its firm instructions to write this letter.
We write to draw your attention to a slanderous publication by your outfit on the 13th day of December 2023 with the headline: “Couple sue St. John Hospital &Fertility Center for GHe5 million over alleged negligence” which seeks to tarnish the brand of our Client as a leading provider of health care services in the country. This said publication has been cited by other News Agencies on their various platforms as a result of your unethical and unprofessional conduct of being bias.
Per the publication, a couple by name Ekow Andoh and Sandra Tekyiwaa Sackey had sued our Client and in their suit claimed inter alia for adeclaration that our Client was vicariously liable for the medical negligence of its employee health workers whose negligent omission and commission caused their baby to be diagnosed with severe asphyxia and death thereafter.
We wish to state that the said writ has not been served on our client and our client learnt of the said writ for the first time in your publication.
We wish to emphatically state that our client and its health workers exercised reasonable care in accordance with the established standards and protocols accepted in the medical profession in their duty to Mrs. Sandra Tekyiwaa Sackey from her antenatal to the delivery of her baby.
At no point in time did our client breach its duty to Mrs. Sackey.At the time Mrs. Sackey visited our client’s health facility and upon detection of her signs of labor being water breaking which she claimed happened an hour earlier, Mrs.Sackey was immediately attended to. However, she informed our health workers of impending exams she had to write on the same day. Our client and its health workers through their professionalism persuaded Mrs. Sackey over and over again in the interest of her unborn baby toforgo her pending examination that very day.
This was eminent on account of the poor heartbeat of the unborn baby and the need to save the baby urgently. After a very prolong delay on the part of Mrs. Sackey who insisted she wanted to leave our client’s hospital to go and write her exams that very day she was to deliver a baby, Mrs. Sackey agreed to be admitted upon further advice and persuasion from our Client.
Our client and its staff acted expeditiously when they realized that the baby was asphyxiated after the delivery. The doctor on duty helped resuscitate the baby and arrangements were made to transfer the baby to another hospital for further treatment.
Our Client attended to Mrs Sackey and later discharged her on 14th August 2023 at 2:00 pm.
Our client was informed through a letter from Mrs. Sackey’s lawyer dated 3rd November 2023 that the baby unfortunately passed away on 14th August 2023 at the referral hospital.
We wish to state that our Client has every intention of contesting the said writ when served on our Client. Our Client strongly deny the allegations of medical negligence and any vicarious liability as claimed in the statement. The allegations made against our Client in the said publication are falsehood, baseless, and unmeritorious and is intended to tarnish the hard-earned reputation of our client as one of the best fertility centers in the country. We also wish to inform you that this allegation can best be described as extortionary.
Our Client has since 2012 delivered over 4288 babies with 6 still and 4 macerated births. St. Johns have won the hearts of its numerous clients based on sound management practices. It has a very disciplined workforce who recognize the need to provide highly skilled and satisfactory care to its clients. Every decision made by our Client’s healthcare professionals is guided by the highest standards of care.
St Johns Hospital and Fertility Centre has won numerous awards including the CIMG for Best Private Hospital 2020, Customers Choice Fertility Centre of the Year 2021, Trusted Women &Fertility Hospital of the year 2021, HealthCare Centre of the Year (Fertility) 2022 from National Customers Choice, Best Community Involvement Hospital 2022 from West Africa Excellence Healthcare awards, Ultramodern Medical Facility of the year 2022 from Ghana-West Africa Excellence Awards, Fertility Hospital Brand of the year 2023 from Ghana Corporate BRANDS Awards, Healthcare Facility of the year 2023 from NCC Awards Ghana, Outstanding Private Specialist Hospital of the Year (Gynaecology) by Ghana-West Africa Health Excellence Award 2023.
We deem it extremely unethical that you have used your platform to publish such falsehood without any verification of its veracity from our Client.
We are by this letter requesting that you retract that publication and render an unqualified apology to our Client through the same medium on or before the 15th of December 2023 to render unnecessary any further action from our client.
Be advised. Yours sincerely,
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM
