Medical Practitioners must as a matter of duty and law inform patients about the state and condition of their health and remedies available, Mr. Akoto Ampaw, Executive Member of the Right to Information Coalition of Ghana, has said.
"In order to respect the autonomy of the patient, it is important that he or she is fully informed about and understand the potential benefits and dangers of the choice of treatment he or she is being given," he said.
Speaking at monthly dialogue series of the African Commission of Health and Human Rights Promoters (CAPSDH), Mr. Ampaw said the patient had the right to be informed about his condition, treatment and the alternative choices and risks that go with them. The dialogue on the theme: "Hippocratic Oath within the Framework of
the Right to Information," seeks to create a platform for health professionals and human rights activists to discuss the oath and scrutinize
the RTI bill, which will set the pace for combining health knowledge with knowledge of law and ethics.
According to Mr. Ampaw, any breakdown in communication between the medical practitioner and the patient can lead to tension, disagreement and
resentment."Unfortunately, partly because of the pressure on our doctors, the mass production character of their practice and sometimes the elitist attitudes of doctors to simple ordinary patients, many medical doctors do not in their
practice demonstrate this responsibility to inform the patient about his condition and the treatment being given," he said.
Mr. Ampaw said in most of these cases, patients were simply treated as objects and not autonomous human beings capable of understanding their condition and the nature of treatment prescribed.
This, he said, was dangerous because it "dis-empowers" the patient who might commit some error because of lack of full disclosures of the nature of the ailment and treatment by the medical practitioner.
He said part of the Hippocratic Oath that enjoined medical practitioners to keep secrets raised the question of patient-medical practitioner privilege, the matter of confidentiality of information that
comes to the knowledge of the medical practitioner in the course of his treatment of patient.
Mr. Ampaw said the country's Evidence Decree does not provide for a general patient-physician privilege, rather made provision for
confidentiality of communication between patient and a physician or psychologist etc in the diagnosis or treatment of a mental or emotional
condition. The anomaly, he said, was corrected by the RTI Bill which sets out a general patient-physician or other medical expert privilege of communication.
On sanctions for medical practitioners who violate the Hippocratic Oath, Mr. Ampaw said the law gave authority to the Medical and Dental
Council to secure the public interest by ensuring the highest standards in the practice of medicine and dentistry.
The council plays this role through the penal and disciplinary committees by examining complaints against practitioners and effecting the
appropriate punishment.
Mr. Ampaw was, however, not happy about the lack of guidelines as to what constitutes 'infamous conduct in a professional respect,' saying it was unsatisfactory to give the disciplinary committee such wide discretion to
determine what constituted infamous conduct.
He has, therefore, urged the medical Council to evoke the power to make by-laws vested in it by the Medical and Dental Act to establish clear
guidelines for medical practitioners as is the case in the United Kingdom.
"I would like to suggest that the Ghana Medical Association takes the lead in consulting with the Ministry of Health and the Attorney General to ensure that we also have some elaborate binding rules to guide medical practitioners in carrying out their profession in an ethical manner," he said.
On the RTI Bill, he said the medical profession and practitioners would be affected in varied ways by the character of the provisions of a right to information law.
The law can contribute to enhancing the practice in the cause of saving peoples' lives.
He said people's right to access information had been widely recognized as an essential pre-requisite for an effective and functional democracy.
In Ghana, this is echoed in Article 21 (1) (f) of the 1992 Constitution which provides for every individual's right to information subject to such
qualifications and laws as are necessary in a democratic society. This is, however, subject to exemptions that are necessary and consistent with the protection of the public interest in a democratic society. This will foster a culture of transparency and accountability in public affairs, to contain corruption and to provide for related matters.
The law places an obligation on public agencies and private bodies to provide to any person access to information and in response to a formal request received, in a timely, inexpensive and reasonable manner.
Professor Kwame Karikari, Executive Director, Media Foundation for West Africa, expressed the hope that the dialogue series would create awareness on rights of individuals to health care.
He said the right to information was vital for patients to know what was wrong.
Dr Edmund Delle, President of CAPSDH, said the dialogue was to create a platform for human rights and health advocates to begin the process of
sharing experiences; to stimulate the creation of collaborative networks for research, education, communication and advocacy; and strengthen national solidarity among people working in health and human rights fields.