News:
February 24, 2026
The Minority Leader, Alexander Kwamena Afenyo-Markin, has called for a full parliamentary inquiry into the death of Charles Amissah, a 29-year-old engineer who died after being rejected by three hospitals in Ghana’s capital city on February 6, 2026.
Speaking on the floor of Parliament, Afenyo-Markin described the incident as a “catastrophic failure” of the nation’s healthcare system and urged the Health Committee of Parliament to be immediately empowered to investigate the circumstances surrounding the young man’s death.
“Mr. Speaker, we must today confront a truth, as painful as it is undeniable. Our health-care system, the sanctuary to which citizens flee in their most fragile hour, failed. It failed catastrophically, and it failed fatally,” Afenyo-Markin told the House.
The Minority Leader painted a vivid picture of Amissah’s final moments, describing him as “a young Ghanaian citizen, a 29-year-old man in the prime of his life, reportedly employed by Promasidor Ghana Limited, who should, by every moral and legal right, be alive today. Instead, he perished. He died in the back of an ambulance, virtually on the streets of our capital city, because the institutions mandated to protect life turned him away.”
“The records show that the Ghana Ambulance Service performed their duty with professionalism and dispatch,” Afenyo-Markin acknowledged. “They found him bleeding profusely. They assessed him. His vital signs were recorded: blood pressure, 120 over 90; pulse, 100 per minute; oxygen saturation, 99 percent. These were the vital signs of a living man, a man with a fighting chance. They stabilized him, controlled the hemorrhage, and rushed him to the gates of hope.”
But hope, the Minority Leader lamented, “was met with a closed door.”
“A life extinguished, not by the initial accident, but by a systemic failure of the state,” Afenyo-Markin declared.
The Minority Leader emphasized that this tragedy represented a direct violation of state policy. He recalled that in 2018, under the leadership of the then-Director General of the Ghana Health Service, a clear directive was issued specifically prohibiting the denial of emergency care on the basis of bed unavailability.
“That directive was unequivocal. It mandated immediate triage, immediate stabilization, and the use of alternative surfaces—couches, tables, wheelchairs—and whatever was available. The principle was and remains simple: stabilize first, resolve bed logistics later. In the case of Charles Amissah, that principle was abandoned, and the man died as a result,” Afenyo-Markin stated.
Afenyo-Markin also called upon the Ghana Police Service to pursue justice for the hit-and-run driver who struck Amissah and fled the scene. “We must not lose sight of the fact that this tragic chain of events was set in motion by a cowardly act. I therefore call upon the Ghana Police Service to deploy every resource, every investigative technique, and every intelligence capability at their disposal to track down and apprehend this individual.”
While acknowledging that the Ministry of Health has launched investigations, Afenyo-Markin drew a sharp distinction between executive inquiry and parliamentary oversight, citing Article 103 of the 1992 Constitution, which grants Parliament the primary duty to investigate matters of public importance and expose inefficiencies and maladministration.
“Therefore, in all humility, but with firmness of mind, I call on the Health Committee to be immediately empowered” to take four specific actions, he said.
These include summoning the Chief Executive Officers and heads of emergency units of the three hospitals involved; demanding production of triage logs, duty rosters, and bed occupancy records for the night in question; establishing conclusively whether the 2018 Ghana Health Service Directive was breached; and determining whether professional misconduct or negligence occurred.
“If misconduct is found, then sanctions must follow. If negligence is proven, prosecution must follow. If a systematic failure is identified, comprehensive reform must follow,” Afenyo-Markin asserted.
Dominic Shirimori/Ghanamps.com