A medical officer at the Donkorkrom Presbyterian Hospital in the Kwahu North District of the Eastern Region has denied media reports that the hospital recorded over 500 illegal teenage abortions resulting in three deaths last year. Dr. Ishmael Opare, a senior medical officer at the Hospital described the story which sought to suggest that those abortions were done by the hospital as misleading. A front page story of the state owned Ghanaian Times newspaper, in its Thursday June 11, 2009 edition said the Donkorkrom Presbyterian Hospital had recorded over 500 illegal teenage abortions last year. The story continued that between January and March this year, the hospital recorded 152 cases of teenage abortions with one death. The paper attributed the story to the District Public Health Nurse of the area, Ms.Stella Deiwaa. The paper quoted Ms.Deiwaa as saying the high rate of abortions in the district was sending a negative impression about the area to the outside world because most of the victims were Junior and Senior High School students between the ages of 13 and 21. But Dr. Ishmael Opare, the Medical officer at the Hospital, speaking on Adom Dwaso Nsem with Ekourba Gyasi on Thursday said the figures quoted by the paper are untrue. He said the hospital is a missionary hospital and does not perform abortions. He explained that the closest case the hospital has treated in relation with abortion is when Medical doctors have to treat people who have done abortions elsewhere and after they have developed some implications they rush to the hospital for treatment. Dr. Opare continued that even in those cases the statistics available at the hospital does not tally with what the Ghanaian Times has put out. He added that statistics recorded at the hospital indicates that four and six cases of abortion were handled at the hospital in the month of April and May respectively this year. Story by Kojo Addo, Adom FM