'Biopsy is done in a day' - KBTH neurosurgeon counters details of Ofori-Atta's Mayo Clinic medical report
(L-R) Neurosurgeon Dr Mohammed Abdullah, Ken Ofori-Atta and Ofori-Atta’s doctor, Dr Ahmed Abdalrhim
Dr Hadi Mohammed Abdullah, a top neurosurgeon at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, has countered some of the details in a supposed medical report from the doctor taking care of embattled former Minister of Finance, Ken Ofori-Atta, who has been declared wanted by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP).
The supposed letter from Ofori-Atta’s doctor, Ahmed Abdalrhim, a doctor at the Section of International Medicine of Rochester at the Mayo Clinic, United States, indicated that the former minister underwent a biopsy, which led to him being diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Dr Abdalrhim indicated that while Ofori-Atta has been scheduled for surgery on the prostate cancer, he needs a recovery time from the biopsy he underwent and therefore cannot travel back to Ghana.
“I am writing to inform you that Mr Ofori-Atta has undergone an MR-guided biopsy and has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. A surgical intervention has been deemed necessary, after the testing and MRI and biopsy procedures in March 2025, as I indicated in my February letter. This surgical procedure has been scheduled for June 13, with Dr Paras Shah of the Department of Urology… It is hoped that a closer date may open up.
“Following the procedure, Mr Ofori-Atta will require a recovery period before he is able to travel to his home country,” parts of the letter read.
Reacting to this in an interview on JoyNews, on June 7, 2025, Dr Mohammed Abdullah said that the medical procedure in Dr Abdalrhim’s letter was questionable.
“But usually, biopsies are done as a day activity. Usually, in Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, it is done on the ward, and the patient goes home the same day. Some even do it in the clinics,” he said.
He reiterated, “This is what we do in Korle Bu, and I’m sure in many, many hospitals across the country where urological services are available.”
He explained that the procedure stated in the letter is just a form of minor surgery to make a diagnosis and not a procedure to “remove the disease per se.”
He also pointed out that the first and second letters that have so far been issued by Ofori-Atta’s doctor do not ‘reconcile.’
“From the two letters that I’ve seen, it was clear that as at March, he would be undergoing surgery. So, it’s very difficult to reconcile the two letters because the second letter now says that they had to undergo MRI-guided biopsy. So, it means at that time, no diagnosis had been made, unless Mayo wants to send that information that the biopsy was the surgery that they were talking about,” he said.
Watch the video of Dr Mohammed Abdullah’s remarks plus the supposed letter from Ofori-Atta’s doctor below:
1st letter
2nd letter
BAI/AE