Monrovia – Montserrado County District #16 Representative Edward Forh, who has filed a lawsuit of US$25 million at the Civil Law Court at the Temple of Justice against the administrator of the John F. Kennedy Hospital for the cause of his daughter’s death, has referred to the current caretaker management team of the hospital as a” bunch of wicked people with no respect for human values”.
Report by Kennedy L. Yangian [email protected]
Testifying before the court and jury Wednesday, Representative Forh who wept while testifying during the trial as he refreshed his memory on how his daughter who died reportedly on the compound of the JFK Hospital said that he had taken his daughter to the JFK on doctor’s advice when she suffered complication in breathing on September 26, 2016.
Representative Forh indicated that the doctor from the Snapper Hill Clinic only identified as Dr. Fanniah had advised him to go to the JFK Hospital for asthma nebulizer to restore his daughter’s breath.
Due to the doctor’s advice Forh explained that he proceeded to the JFK Hospital but when he got there he met one of the intern doctors called Dr. Dorbor.
While at the hospital Forh said that the intern doctor told him that the machine to perform the task was there but the technicians who worked on the machine were all out and she could do the work but the other doctors did not cooperate as the JFK administrators had mandated that any patient coming in during that time should present ETU clearance for Ebola and if she went against the mandate she would not receive her license.
According to Forh, Dr. Dorbor told him that she was going to contact her boss, one Dr. Okiror who is the Chief Physician at the hospital who arrived an hour later and saw his daughter lying in the car unattended to in the hospital yard but he stood a distance away from the car and look at her without doing anything.
“Dr. Okiror came and told me to take her back home to bring back the next day because it was late but we all begged him and he still refused adding that he cannot do anything,” said Representative Forh.
The Montserrado lawmaker said in his general testimony to the court that he was forced to take his daughter back home after Dr. Okiror refused her and took her back the next day but when they tried to enter the hospital again the security on duty stopped him at the first gate but managed to entered and while reaching the second gate he was stopped and this is how he took his daughter off the car to rush her at the emergency room but both of them collapse and she remained there and died on a rainy day.
According to Representative Forh after his daughter’s death, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf heard the news and decided to visit the hospital while she was on her way the hospital administrators wanted to take her body away and stopped them and called for Ebola test and the test was done and his daughter was declared Ebola-free.
“My daughter was lying on the ground at the JFK Hospital during a rainy day while the doctors were standing watching the body but these people are bunch of wicked people with no respect for human values,” said Representative Forh, who says that he wanted the JFK administrators to repent from their action and his lawsuit was intended to discourage the act from being meted against another child.
In his general testimony Forh also told the court and jury that after President Sirleaf visited the hospital and consoled him after his daughter’s death she recommended for a full scale investigation but he objected to the investigation report because his family was not part of the investigation.
He stated after objecting to the report at the then Health Minister Walker Gwenigale was Chairman of the board of JFK and he filed an objection to report to the Liberia Medical and Dental Council headed by Dr. Moses Pewu who held the JFK administrators for acting negligently.
When questioned by his lawyer Cllr. Arthur Johnson about the distress he suffered as the result of his daughter’s death, Forh responded that he hoped his daughter could have lived to run the Nakita School of Medical Health, adding the family had lost a family helper who had something to offer, adding that the late Nakita was at the verge of obtaining a degree in Accounting at the Stella Maris, where she served as a queen prior to her death.
Representative Forh is to be cross-examined Thursday by defense lawyer and Montserrado County Attorney Cllr. Daku Mulbah after his lawyer Cllr. Johnson announced that he had exhausted direct examination of the complaint’s first witness.