Health Ministry�s Report Lenient And Disappointing �SUWAIBA�S FAMILY

The family of Suwaiba Mumuni, the woman whose stillborn baby got missing at the Komfo Anokye Hospital some months back say they are disappointed with the final report released on the issue. The ministry of health has made some final recommendations after examining reports submitted by the hospital and governing bodies of the health profession. Two midwifes have been asked to proceed on two and four weeks respective suspensions without pay for professional misconduct. Meanwhile the doctor who oversaw the delivery has been absorbed of any wrong doing. The family�s spokesperson and brother of Suwaiba, Abdul Rahman told Ultimate Radio, the ministry has been most lenient. He said their meetings with the nurses and midwifery council as well as the Dental and Medical Council suggested any one implicated would have been severely sanctioned. �We were with them in a tette a tete and we all realized the magnitude of their wrong doing and I don�t understand why it is now in the public that they�ve done something so light,� he bemoaned. He is also beefed the ministry has not officially conferred with the family in coming out with its final report. �Since the issue broke, the ministry has been working in their own way and they have not officially communicated this final report to the family.� Abdul Rahman also noted that the family will be writing to the ministry to furnish them with the reports received from the government and the councils for their own perusal. He told Ultimate Radio their lawyers will be soon holding a meeting with the family to that effect. Another concern Abdul Rahman raised was the failure of the report to address the issue of the whereabouts of the missing stillborn baby. He emphasized, �From what we have read and what we have heard, we have not been told anything about the whereabouts of the baby even though it is the center of the whole brouhaha�. Meanwhile ultimate radio has gathered that the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital is yet to receive any official notification of the report and its sanctions there in. Its Public Relations Officer, Kofi Frimpong told Ultimate Radio, hospital management can only take an official position after it received the official report from the ministry. He noted however that the two persons implicated �were not directly connected to the initial allegation of the missing babies of the stillborns in that department� He said �they were supervisors but they did not directly attend to the lady who came to deliver which eventually became an issue.� He added however that management of KATH was going to meet over the matter to give its position on the report immediately it gets hold of any official communiqu�.