When a couple in Accra walked into the 37 Military Hospital Maternity Unit, they were expecting twins, but they were stunned to be handed a single baby after delivery.
They are accusing the staff of the hospital of allegedly being responsible for the ‘disappearance’ of one of the freshly-born babies supposed to be the other twin, delivered at the hospital.
The delivery was done through Caesarean section on Thursday, September 8, 2022.
A visibly distraught mother of the supposed twin, 38-year-old trader – Audrey Agyapong, and her 54-year-old husband, Daniel Naawu, are suspecting foul play.
Narrating their ordeal to the Ghanaian Times in Accra, the couple recalled that an ultrasonic checks done 31 weeks into the gestation period at two medical facilities, including the 37 Military Hospital, showed that Ms Agyapong was carrying two live foetuses (twins).
The Ghanaian Times’ painstaking investigations suggested that the first scan report, which was signed off by Dr Otu Danquah, was conducted on April 22, 2022, at the Cerica Diagnostic Services at Lartebiokoshie in Accra, when the pregnancy was 20 weeks.
Its results showed live intrauterine (inside the uterus) foetuses.
Furthermore, a second ultrasonic scan done at the 37 Military Hospital on July 21, 2022, and signed by Drs M.T Mpetey and R. Asiedu, a Resident and Senior Physician respectively, confirmed results of the earlier scan with twin A weighing 269g and B weighing 261g.
“In all, we did four different scans, all showing I was carrying live twins and it is baffling that one could disappear at birth,” Ms Agyapong told the Ghanaian Times.
Explaining further, she said on September 7, 2022, when her gestation period was 38 weeks, she was admitted at the 37 Military Hospital where her vitals were taken with two foetal heart beats confirmed as normal.
“On the 8th of September 2022, the morning of the operation, my babies were checked again and I was told they were both well. Double logistics were therefore taken for them. At the theatre, I was prepared for the operation and anaesthesia was given which completely numbed the lower part of my body.
“A screen was placed in the middle which prevented me from directly viewing what was happening. However, I felt the two babies being taken from my womb. Later, I heard a cry and one female baby was shown to me by a doctor named Dr Ali Saine, who told me ‘It is only one baby’.”
SOURCE: Ghanaian Times