<<Print>>

A patient on admission at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) jumped to his death from the fourth floor of the �D� Block where terminally and critically ill patients are hospitalised. The patient, Owusu Ansah, allegedly removed the louvre blades from one of the windows in the ward about 3.50 a.m. Tuesday and hurled himself from the opening to land on the concrete roof of the nearby Chest Clinic of the hospital. Ansah, believed to be in his early 40s, died instantly. His ailment was, however, not disclosed. The incident sent shock waves through the hospital, since it was the first time such an incident had occurred at KATH. According to the police, it was professionally incorrect to disclose Ansah�s ailment, saying that was between the patient and his doctor. His remains were taken to the morgue after security officials at the hospital had informed the police. Pathologists are yet to work on the body, as the police have just started their investigations. Ansah had been on admission at the hospital for some time and was put on the �D� Block. According to the Second in Command at the Ashanti Regional Police Public Relations Office, Sergeant Godwin Ahianyo, the police were, in the meantime, treating the case as suicide. Giving details, Sgt Ahianyo said a nurse on duty who was attending to an aggressive patient at the ward heard an unusual noise from an end of the ward. She rushed to the scene and saw Ansah, who was on oxygen support, struggling to force his frame through a human-size gap in the window. The nurse pressed the alarm bell at the ward and other hospital staff rushed in in response to the alarm in a desperate attempt to stop Ansah from falling. However, it was too late because the patient had managed to squeeze his body through the window. The staff and other patients could, therefore, only watch the man plummet to his death. �The scene was horrendous and had never been seen at the hospital before,� a worker at the hospital told the Daily Graphic. According to him, there was nothing the nurse on duty could have done to prevent what happened.