[ 2017-03-10 ]

Dr. Lydia Dsane-Selby, Director of Claims at the National Health Insurance Authority

Quack doctors killing patients with wrong diagnosis – NHIA reveals
There’s an increasingly alarming number of
unqualified practitioners involved in irrational
patient diagnosis in various hospitals across the
country, Director of Claims at the National Health
Insurance Authority, Dr. Lydia Dsane-Selby has
revealed.

Dr. Selby made this revelation during the KN
Tamaklo Medical Symposium held in Accra Friday
March 10.

Speaking on the key health problems facing the
health sector, she said that many of the claim
forms received monthly from service providers have
wrong diagnosis coupled with wrong prescriptions
admitted by some medical practitioners. In other
instances she said, the complaints expressed by
the patients don’t correspond with the final
diagnosis made.

“There are people with stethoscopes round their
neck and in a white coat, as soon as you’re
dressed like that, everybody calls you doctor and
you have the right to start giving injections and
what have you….you have somebody who came to the
clinic, normal temperature, it’s a child, and
the person examining wrote; stable and not pale
and yet the diagnosis was septicaemia and severe
anaemia with all the drugs that go with it”, she
said.

She cited another incident where a person
complained of body pains and without any
examination was diagnosed with Bronchitis and
Malaria and given all the drugs along with it.

Dr. Selby maintained that the absence of adequate
medical personnel in the sector should not be
enough justification to accommodate unqualified
persons who pose as doctors.

“We all know that Ghana lacks the requisite
numbers, but that doesn’t mean you should
compromise care and have completely unqualified
staff looking after patients”.

Dr. Selby said that the practice is an indictment
on the country’s reputation adding that this
though may have been ongoing overtime, has come to
the limelight with the advent of health insurance
and the concern about payments.

Source - GhanaWeb.com

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