Boy Identifies Doctors In Korle-Bu Case

By William Yaw Owusu

Saturday, 18 November 2006
THE boy who has sued the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital for negligence has told an Accra Fast Track High Court that a team of doctors were responsible for the wrongful surgery conducted on his left leg instead of the right.

The 15-year old boy identified the doctors, Addo Kennedy, Korpisah and Agbeko and stated that they all examined him. He could however, not tell who led the team during the surgery because “I had been chloroformed.”


He was concluding his testimony on Wednesday at the court presided over by Mr. Justice E.K. Ayebi.


The suit was filed on behalf of the boy by his mother, Gladys Darko, and cites the governing board of the hospital as well as the three doctor’s for a “wrongful operation” conducted on his left on September 13, 2005.


He is seeking ¢800 million in damages.


According to the suit, the doctors operated on the boy’s left knee instead of the right, after he had been diagnosed with “a torn patella ligament.”


The writ further claimed that the boy’s father suffered a cardiac arrest and died as a result of the doctors’ negligence.


The boy told the court during the final cross examination by counsel for the hospital Emmanuel Ohene, that the doctors mentioned all “visited me before and after the surgery.”


He said it was Dr Korpisah who examined his right leg and told him to prepare for a surgery and also gave him a note to purchase the Plaster of Paris (POP).


He said Dr. Agbeko was the anaesthetist whose name he saw on the folder adding that he could identify Dr. Addo if he saw him.


“We were three patients in the theatre and I was the third person to be attended to by the doctors,” he said.


He further told the court that he was not aware whether it was Dr. Larnyoh, a consulting surgeon now deceased, who led the team to perform the surgery.


He said he leaned on the left leg from September 2005 to May 2006 before the surgery was done and ‘when I walk for a long time, I feel pains in my legs.”


He said he went to Korle-Bu on July 10, for a review and not a physiotherapy and denied attempting to sneak his folder into the Physiotherapy Department.


Cross examined further by Paa Kwesi Abaidoo, a counsel for Dr. Korpisah, he said, “I stand by my evidence that I was operated upon by a team of medical doctors but I cannot tell who was the leader.”


He said it was his mother who signed the consent form before the surgery was conducted.