Charles Amissah died from medical neglect, not trauma — Akosa committee finds

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[00:00:01]from bringing us on board to investigate the untimely death of Charles Amissa.

[00:00:11]The minister nominated three of us, Dr. Koku Auna Williams, his technical advisor, who is also a WHO consultant, and Dr. Henry Boule, an emergency physician.

[00:00:30]The three of us felt that the matter was grave enough and therefore we needed to bring in a few more expertise.

[00:00:41]Unfortunately for us, Dr. Conrad Buckle who is a consultant emergency physician in the UK and also teaches in the Ghana College was in town and therefore we quickly roped him in.

[00:00:56]We also brought Dr.Wame Kawwami Ecrement, an emergency physician from UGGMC to join the team.

[00:01:03]And then we needed critical care nursing staff. And so we brought Fina Excel Adipa who is a critical care nurse and the principal of the peroperative and critical nursing school in Kalibu and Gertrude Nana Kunajiman who is a critical care nurse. uh at UGMC.

[00:01:29]Of course, the head of legal, the ministry of health was member secretary and was supported by Dosta Oay Jakum who is the administrative a senior administrative manager.

[00:01:48]Can we have the So ladies and gentlemen, this is the committee's report on the untimely death of Charles Emma due to the denial of emergency care at the police hospital, the Greater Acra Regional Hospital and Kubu Teaching Hospital on the 6th of February, 2026.

[00:02:22]Introduction on the timely death of Charles Emvisa who was involved in a motorcycle accident at circle overhead bridge.

[00:02:38]There were also reports of denial of emergency care to Charles and Misa at police hospital, Greater Acra Regional Hospital and Kugu Teaching Hospital.

[00:02:56]And on the 23rd of February 2026, the honorable minister for health MP constituted an investigate shin committee.

[00:03:37]to go over.

[00:03:39]Can we get another laptop?

[00:04:01]Williams, Dr. Conrad Buckle who is in the back in the UK, Dr. Henry Bully, Dr.Wami Ecrement Madame Fina Excla Madame Gertrude Nakajiman Alhaji Dr. Inua Yousef and D Costa Ojakum.

[00:04:23]Now the two objectives that were given to us precisely was to conduct a comprehensive and independent investigation into circumstances leading to the death of Charles Anisa and also to conduct a comprehensive and independent investigation into circumstances leading to the alleged denial of emergency care to Charles Emma at the police hospital, the Greater Arrow Regional Hospital and Kalibu teaching hospital.

[00:04:57]Now we looked at policy and legal perspectives and we looked at some national level policies that we reviewed. So, the National Health Policy, Human Resource Management Policy Framework and Manual for Ghana Public Services, the Ministry of Health, Accident and Emergency Services and Guidelines, of course, the 1992 Constitution, the Health Facilities and Regulatory Agency, the Patients Charter, the Health Professions Regulatory Bodies, Professional Bodies Registration, the National Ambulance Service, the National Blood service, health insurance and health financing.

[00:05:43]We looked at medical interventions in emergencies.

[00:05:48]And here we consulted the latest edition, the advanced trauma life support 11th edition 2026 that speaks to the XABC algorithm where X is the control of exanguinating external hemorrhage.

[00:06:08]A looks at airway maintenance with cervical spine motion restriction. B for breathing and ventilation. C for circulation, hemorrhage control and management of shock. D for disability. E for exposure and environmental control.

[00:06:28]The approach to the inquiry.

[00:06:34]Honorable Minister, we visited the accident site, the circle overhead ambulance bay, the emergency departments of the police hospital, Great Acra Regional Hospital, Kibu Teaching Hospital, and we visited for me a newly discovered facility, the Ghana Armed Forces Critical Care and Emergency Hospital and the Emergency Department of 37 Military Hospital.

[00:07:01]These are pictures of the sites. This was the circle overhead where the accident happened.

[00:07:10]We used the ambulance. We visited the actual ambulance that was used to move Charles and we looked at it and looked at the equipments that were in the ambulance and what you know mitigating circumstances there were.

[00:07:28]This is the new facility that we discovered uh around the air force base.

[00:07:37]37 military hospital accidents and emergency department, police hospital accidents and emergency department and Kibu teaching hospital accidents and emergency. We needed to do these site visits to virtually, you know, follow through on the emergency procedures in order to see whether there were any, you know, uh uh problems there. And then of course the greater Ara regional hospital, ridge hospital, accidents and emergency department.

[00:08:09]Now this inquiry meet, we had meetings with national ambulance staff, the police hospital management and those who were on duty. the Greater Accra sorry Greater Accra regional hospital management and those who were on duty.

[00:08:24]Uh so the ambulance crew the emergency medical technicians Dr. Anari Kudawa medical officer at police hospital Dr. Nina Naomi Aram Adotvi senior medical officer at the greater Ara regional hospital Miss Aosia Texan triage nurse at the greater Ara regional hospital Dr. Ida drant an emergency specialist at Kolu teaching hospital Dr. Genevie Aja an emergency doctor at Kugu teaching hospital Miss Joy Daisy Nelson senior triage nurse Kugu teaching hospital Miss Salama to Alhassan Adu staff triage nurse at Kibu teaching hospital and Dr. Qui Sabra in Kruma a medical officer at Kibu teaching hospital and Dr. Blancing Abuaj the pathologist who presented the autopsy report.

[00:09:19]We also had consultative meetings with public institutions, the National Ambulance Service, the management of police hospital, the management of Greater Arrow Regional Hospital, the management of Kalibu Teaching Hospital, the Health Facilities Regulatory Agency, HeRA, St. John Ambulance Service, the Medical and Dental Council, Ghana Police Moto Traffic and Transport Directorate, NDTD, and National Pensions and Regulatory Authority. We also consulted with the social security and national insurance trust snakes, the national insurance commission, the Ghana Health Service, the health promotion division of Ghana Health Service, the nurses and midwife council, Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons, Faculty of Emergency Medicine of the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons, the National Blood Service, the Christian Health Association of Ghana.

[00:10:13]We also consulted the professional bodies, the Ghana Medical Association, Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association, Ghana Physicians Assistance Association, Ghana Association of Quite Government Institutions, the Society of Private Medical and Dental Practitioners, the Ghana Journalist Association, Emergency Medical Technicians Association of Ghana, and a Health and Development Consulting.

[00:10:39]We also had feedback.

[00:10:42]We met the family of Charles Emma and we had consultative feedback from organizations such as the emergency medicine society of Ghana, the emergency medicine residents in Ara and retired nurses and midwives club.

[00:10:58]One of the 17 individuals send us you know contributions to the work that we're doing from Albert Ponsa, Antonia Abi, Collins Uu, Dr. Joseph Apiado, Dr. Salam Kashi Dr. George Abufa Elvis Ko Alabili Emmanuel Emmanuela Asanti Hana AJ Mensah Hike Dial Ata Jonathan Mbanja Kjo Gagi Mame Quaya Wii Kuji Francis Aong Dr. Joseph Olivi Veronica Ado Donko.

[00:11:40]Now the postmortem report was very pertinent.

[00:11:47]The significant postmortem findings were that there was a deep laceration injury of the right upper arm and blood vessels and muscles.

[00:12:00]Charles Emisa had a communed open fracture of the right upper humorus.

[00:12:07]He had severe palo of all internal organs, shocked kidneys from exanguination, cerebral edema and had a mild cardome.

[00:12:20]Now this is a snapshot of precisely what happened and I think that for me this tells the whole story. at time t 000000 22.32.

[00:12:34]This was the incident scene. The ambulance got to the ambulance to the accident site.

[00:12:44]From there 11 minutes 22.43 they arrived at police hospital. This was the first point of contact with a formal hospital system. So arrival of police hospital and from there they were moved on to the greater Ara regional hospital.

[00:13:07]They arrived 30 26 minutes later at 2258 to Greater Accra Regional Hospital and again at Greater Acra Regional Hospital they were moved on to Kalibu teaching hospital.

[00:13:25]48 minutes later at 2320 they arrived at Kibu Teaching Hospital and in all this patient was alive again. Kibbo Hospital. There was no joy.

[00:13:38]In fact, he was moved on to go to UGMC, but the ambulance crew refused to move.

[00:13:46]And at 00 30, 118 minutes later, patient was pronounced dead. And the pathology confirms a slow death from medical neglect and was not from the instant trauma.

[00:14:07]What it means is that if at any of these facilities there had been medical intervention, Charles Amissa could have survived.

[00:14:21]Now the key findings.

[00:14:25]Charles Amisa died of exangrination, excess excessive loss of blood due to an upper right arm, bone and soft tissue injury causing damage to the auxiliary and brachial arteries and veins following a road traffic accident.

[00:14:53]Death of Charles Emisa could have been avoided by medical intervention at the police hospital, the Greater Acra Regional Hospital or Kolibu Teaching Hospital.

[00:15:07]If the ambulance crew had applied compression on the laceration and packed the deep wound prior to transportation, they could have stopped the bleeding.

[00:15:27]They could also have administered intravenous fluids in the ambulance whilst moving. that would have restored the blood volume and if in the hospitals they had either given intravenous fluids or whole blood either in police the greater a regional hospital or kibu teaching hospital they would have maintained life.

[00:15:59]Now there were key findings related to the National Ambulance Service.

[00:16:06]We discovered that there was lack of documentation of critical vital signs of the patient.

[00:16:14]When they got there, they were able to take the blood pressure. They were able to take the SPO2, that's the oxygen content in the blood. But beyond that, there was very little that they could do. And there it was because if you look at the ambulance, the ambulance itself had uh equipment that were stationary and unfortunately the BP cuff got torn and therefore it was difficult for them to take the vital signs. One of the other things was that there was no lack of for there was lack of formal handing over procedure. I mean if you go with an ambulance crew you identify yourself I am EMT Ajiman Kusa I have a patient XY Z and you're handing over to who? So all that becomes part of the documentation of both the National Ambulance Service and the receiving hospitals but it was nothing like that lack of proper chain of command interaction. Again, you got there to the hospital and the front person could even say the place is full, so move on. There was no proper chain of command.

[00:17:29]Let's move on.

[00:17:33]Key findings related to the police hospital. Ambulance arrived at the hospital with the patient alive.

[00:17:40]Hospital failed to triage the patient and initiate stabilizing interventions.

[00:17:47]Ambulance moved with the patient out of hospital after 11 minutes.

[00:17:55]At the greater regional hospital, ambulance arrived at hospital with patient alive. It's important that we state all these things because at the time they got to the hospital, patient was alive. hospital failed to triage the patient and initiate stabilizing interventions.

[00:18:11]Ambulance moved with a patient out of hospital after 17 minutes and you can refer to that snapshot 11 uh 18 minutes uh referral anomaly in Kolu teaching hospital.

[00:18:28]Ambulance arrived at the hospital with the patient alive. hospital failed to trash the patient and initiate stabilizing interventions. Ambulance crew was redirected to Kibut uh from Kibutian hospital to UGMC but they refused. Patient died in the ambulance in about 70 minutes while in hospital.

[00:18:52]Key findings in respect of the ambulance crew. There was inconsistency in the taking and reporting of vital signs of the patient and the emergency medical med medical technicians lack lacked basic life support, advanced cardiac life support and advanced trauma life support. In other words, they were just carriers really and could not without these skills maintain life whilst in the ambulance.

[00:19:32]Key findings in respect of the professionals Dr. Her aunt Marie Kudawa failed to exercise ethical and professional judgment prudently by not attending to Charles Amisa in a life-threatening condition at police hospital leading to his death later from severe loss of blood and she was untruthful to the committee.

[00:19:57]Dr. Nina Naomi Ezram Adotivi failed to exercise ethical and professional judgment prudently by not attending to Charles Emma in a life-threatening condition at Greater Arrow Regional Hospital leading to his death later from severe loss of blood.

[00:20:15]Dr. either drant failed to exercise ethical and professional judgment prudently by not attending to Charles Emma in a life-threatening condition at Kibu Teaching Hospital leading to his death later from severe loss of blood.

[00:20:31]Dr. Genevie Ajah failed to exercise ethical and professional judgment prudently by not attending to Charles Emisa in a life-threatening condition at Kibu Teaching Hospital leading to his death later from severe loss of blood.

[00:20:50]Miss Aquestia B. Texan failed to exercise ethical and professional judgment prudently by not attending to Charles Emma in a life-threatening condition at Greater Acra Regional Hospital leading to his death later from severe loss of blood.

[00:21:06]Miss Joy Daisy Nelson failed to exercise ethical and professional judgment prudently by not attending to Charmisa in a life-threatening condition at Kibu Teaching Hospital leading to his death later from severe loss of blood.

[00:21:21]Miss Salatu al-Hassan Adu failed to exercise ethical and professional judgment prudently by not attending to Charles Emisa in a life-threatening condition at Kibu teaching hospital leading to his death later of blood.

[00:21:37]conclusions.

[00:21:40]The medical staff on duty at the police hospital, Greater Arkran Regional Hospital and Kubu Teaching Hospital failed to attend to Charles Emma when he was in a life-threatening condition and this led to his avoidable death.

[00:22:01]Specific recommendations.

[00:22:04]Dr. and Marie Kudawa should be referred to the management of police hospital and to the medical and dental council for disciplinary action against her for breach of professional duty to Charles Emma and for being untruthful to the committee.

[00:22:22]Dr. Nina Naomi Adotei should be referred to the management of Greater Ara regional hospital as their employ as their employer. They have oversight administrative and management disciplinary processes that they must go through and the medical and dental council for disciplinary action against her for breach of professional duty to Charles Emma.

[00:22:47]Dr. Ida Drant should be referred to the management of KU teaching hospital and medical and dental council for disperate action against her for breach of professional duty to Charles Emisa.

[00:22:59]Dr. Genevie Ajar should be referred to the management of Kalibu teaching hospital and medical and dental council for disciplinary action against her for breach of professional duty to Charles Emma.

[00:23:12]Miss Aosia B. Texan should be referred to the management of greater Ara regional hospital and to the nurses and midwives council for disciplinary action against her for breach of professional duty to Charles Emma.

[00:23:26]Miss Joy Daisy Nelson should be referred to the management of Colonial Teaching Hospital and the nurses and midwives council for discipline action against her for breach of professional duty to Charles Emma.

[00:23:39]Miss Salama to Alhassen Adu should be referred to Kolu teaching hospital and nurses and midwives council for disciplinary action against her for breach of professional duty to Charles Emma.

[00:23:54]There were specific recommendations to expedite action on the establishment of a national electronic emergency bed management system. This was one of the critical findings uh of the committee to take steps to fully integrate the Ghana armed forces critical care and emergency hospital into the national emergency and critical care system. It was something that we discovered. It has a 150 bed capacity with an ICU, an intensive care unit. And we felt that this is a national asset that should be brought into the national emergency and critical care system.

[00:24:40]Ensure compulsory triging of all patients brought to all health care facilities in a state of emergency across the country. and by all healthcare facilities. We're looking at both public and private healthcare facilities.

[00:24:57]Establish a national emergency care fund to enable emergency care for the first 24 hours in public and private health care facilities across the country. What this means is that if you are picked up anywhere then you are moved to the nearest hospital for stabilization whether it's private whether it's public and for the private sector one of their problems was of course reimbursement and that is why we felt there's a need to establish this national emergency care fund in addition to what national uh uh health insurance does and what the national uh insurance commission does to facilitate uh to expedite action on legislation for public and private health care care facilities to prioritize life-threatening cases and ensure stabilizing interventions for patients in need of emergency care across the country.

[00:26:00]Ensure basic life support.

[00:26:03]And I just want to refer to all of you journalists here. I don't believe any of you know what basic life support is. If anybody collapses here or even in the Ghana Journalist Association forum, who can step and go and make sure that that person survives?

[00:26:25]It is important that basic life support and advanced cardiac life support, basic life support for the general public, but at least basic life support, advanced cardiac life support training for all health workers.

[00:26:37]pupils, students and the general public.

[00:26:42]You can be a health worker, not necessarily a doctor, but if you work in a hospital and somebody collapses right in front of you and you cannot even do first aid, I think that is despicable.

[00:26:52]This is something that must happen and we must put a time limit to it so that everybody gets properly trained.

[00:27:01]Establish a national governance and management system for emergency care to ensure implementation of all the gamechanging interventions in public and private care facilities across the board. This is not the first time such an incident has happened. We do not want a report that will you know just I don't know just become uh shelf bound without any proper real uh realization and we believe that we should be able to implement all the game-changing findings.

[00:27:42]This is it and the committee wishes to express our profound gratitude to the honorable minister for health MP for the trust and confidence we put in us. Thank you very much.

[00:28:01]Thank you very much for the good work the committee has done. Can we put our hands together for the once again? At this juncture, I will invite the honorable minister to >> officially come for the report.

[00:28:15]>> Honorable minister, this is a very detailed report uh that the committee is submitting to you and we hope that action will be the key word. Thank you.

[00:28:29]>> Thank you very much honorable minister.

[00:28:32]I will invite you to um give some brief remarks on this. Thank you.

[00:28:43]>> Yeah. At this point, may I request that we all be upstanding to observe one minute silence in honor of our brother Charles.

[00:28:59]May the soul of our brother Chaz Emisa and other departed rest in perfect peace. Amen.

[00:29:06]>> Let's be seated.

[00:29:19]The very background of this exercise has eloquently been stated by the venerable professor Badu Akusa and I don't intend to repeat whatever he has said.

[00:29:40]First and foremost, Prof and your team, I thank you so very much for the thorough work done.

[00:29:52]In the first place, I constituted a three member committee, but in your wisdom, you realized that you needed more hands to do a good job.

[00:30:03]I thank you for that judgment and just to assure you the details of the report especially the recommendations will be implemented to the latter.

[00:30:19]Ladies and gentlemen, on the 23rd of February when I constituted a committee chaired by the venerable professor Berdu Akusa, I promised the good people of this country that when the report is ready, we'll publish the report.

[00:30:41]Here we are making the the report available to every Ghanaian.

[00:30:49]promise fulfilled.

[00:30:53]But that is not the most important aspect.

[00:30:56]As professor stated, the most important aspect is for us to be able to avoid the avoidable debts we have witnessed.

[00:31:12]And therefore without wasting much time I want to accordingly direct my chief director the chief director of the ministry of health to write to the following people the following health professionals and their hospitals and their regulators that disciplinary actions be taken against them.

[00:31:42]One, Dr. Anmarie Kudo should be referred to the police hospital and the medical and dental council with immediate effect.

[00:31:56]Dr. Nina Naomi Aram, the Greater Acra Regional Hospital and the Medical and Dental Council.

[00:32:09]Dr. either drugs be referred to Kibu teaching hospital and the medical and dental council. I understand some of these facilities have already started disciplinary actions against some of these people and I'll urge them to expedite action on them and their respective regulators must also do same.

[00:32:36]Dr. Genevie Aa must also be referred to Kolibu Teaching Hospital and Medical and Dental Council.

[00:32:43]Miss Aushia B. Texan must be referred to the Greater Ara regional hospital and then NMC.

[00:32:52]Miss Joy Daisy Nelson Kibu Teaching Hospital and NMC.

[00:32:58]Miss Salamatu Aasan Bedu must also be referred to Kibu Teaching Hospital and NMC. Before this incident, some measures had already been taken with respect to our emergency response in this country.

[00:33:19]We had already started the electronic bed management and so at that point we were doing the barcoding and the inventory taking of all beginning or piloting with the regional hospitals and the teaching hospitals. So today ladies and gentlemen the press will have the opportunity to visit that particular site at greater regional hospital to see the progress made so far. That is an action the professor was talking about.

[00:33:53]The second one was another recommendation that the critical care and emergency center or emergency hospital at the Ghana armed forces must be also made available to the public.

[00:34:09]That was a world bank um sponsored world health world health organization UN is that UN okay so it is a national asset that must be optimized and so um his excellency the president has directed that that must also be made available to every Ghanaian and so from here with the press we'll go there and inspect the nature of that particular facility and if there's a need for us to beef anything up will do so accordingly.

[00:34:51]With these few words I want to repeat and assure the committee that your work will not be in vain.

[00:35:02]will endeavor to implement all the recommendations in the best interest of mother Ghana. I thank you so very much for the opportunity.