LEKMA Hospital sued for alleged unauthorised removal of woman’s womb

The LEKMA Hospital at Teshie has reportedly been sued for an alleged unauthorised hysterectomy performed on a then 28-year-old woman.

The victim, identified as Doris Oppong, is said to have gone to the health facility to have a Caesarean section (C-Section) birth on June 17, 2019. The process was successful and Oppong was delivered of a male baby.

But according to the suit filed at an Accra High Court, Oppong realised only a few hours after her C-Section and regaining her sense of self-awareness that she was having severe abdominal pains. This discomforting feeling was also accompanied by bleeding.

The suit claims that Oppong could not bring herself to feed her infant baby because of her own pains. Meanwhile, nurses at the LEKMA Hospital held on to her baby.

Her baby would eventually die too after suffering from asphyxia neonatorum – a condition that affected his ability to take in oxygen, resulting in his death three days after he was born.

Oppong and her husband Thomas Addai, in the writ of summons, blame the baby’s death on wrongful feeding by nurses at the hospital.

On June 19, 2019, Oppong recounts that she was taken back onto an operating table due to her abdominal pains and bleeding that had become “overwhelming”. At this point, she says shew was diagnosed with an iatrogenic infection as a result of the C-Section.

Iatrogenesis is the causation of a disease, discomfort or ailment as a result of medical activity ranging from diagnosis to intervention. Often, it is thought that the disease, discomfort or ailment is brought about by error or negligence during the medical activity.

Oppong claims her womb was removed without her consent but supposedly in a bid to save her life from the infection. She says she was not told of what particularly necessaitated a hysterectomy and was denied the opportunity to decide to have it.

That is why she blames the LEKMA Hospital for the “irreparable damage” of permanently curtailing her ability to have children.

She also claims that had LEKMA performed her C-Section according to the best practices, her infection would not have occurred, and a hysterectomy would also have been unneccessary.

Oppong, who is now childless, is seeking compensations for what she and her husband believe was the wrongful feeding of their baby. They also seek separate compensations for the baby’s death, the iatrogenic infection Oppong suffered as well as for the alleged unauthorised removal of her womb.