Private Legal Practitioner, Emmanuel Darkwa, has asked patients to be circumspect about decisions to file a case of medical negligence against a health facility.

Speaking on the Super Morning Show, on Friday, he posited that establishing a case of medical negligence is not an easy task.

"For one to establish that a health facility or a doctor was negligent, you first of all have to establish the fact that, that facility owed the patient a duty of care and that duty was breached," he said.

He stated that following a case of medical negligence he won in court, he received various calls from people expressing interest in suing a case of medical negligence against health facilities. Among the callers was a friend who had a baby in 2020.

"I think two days after delivery the baby suffered from jaundice and he called and said the baby is unable to do what a child at its age should do because of the ailment. So he insisted we filed a case in court.

"But I resisted and asked that we made some consultations. So he called a friend who was a medical doctor and we had a conversation.

He disclosed that after the conversation with the doctor friend, they came to a realisation that it is better not to sue.

"After responses were given to the questions that I put to her and interrogations were over and I was left with my friend, he came to the realisation that the earlier stance not to take the case to a court was good because after he reviewed a lot of things he realised that if he had gone to court, trying to say that the doctor was negligent, things would go against him," he said.

He was contributing to discussions on the Super Morning Show, which centered on medical negligence. During the show, Acting Registrar of the Medical and Dental Council of Ghana shared the opinion that patients do not have the right to determine the kind of medical treatment they should be given at hospitals.

Dr Divine Banyubala argued that though patients can make decisions concerning their health, they can only choose from options prescribed to them at a medical facility.

In a reaction, Lawyer Emmanuel Darkwa, shared an opposing view. He was of the view that whatever the choice of a patient is, the medical professional must respect it.