Congestion at KATH worsens as reception area turned into ward

Management of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) is calling on government to, as a matter of urgency, complete the ongoing hospital projects to decongest the facility to boost healthcare delivery.

According to KATH’s management, as it stands now, the facility has overflooded its capacity of 1,200 to over 2,500, a situation they say has created congestion and affect quality healthcare delivery.

Speaking on Akoma FM’s current affairs and political show GhanAkoma Wednesday, April 20, the head of Public Affairs at KATH, Kwame Frimpong, explained the surging nature of the hospital has forced management to convert the facility’s reception into a ward.

Mr Frimpong told host of the show Aduanaba Kofi Asante Ennin that “a cubicle that is supposed to take only 12 patients is now hosting over 52 and the situation is spread across almost all the wards in the hospital because we receive referrals from all the remaining regions within the middle and northern belt and even Burkina Faso. So we have indeed overstretched our capacity to save lives. So it is about time government completed all the ongoing peripheral hospital projects to ease us from this congested situation we are faced with”.

Built in 1955, the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital is yet to see any significant infrastructural boost after former President John AGyekum Kufuor built the Accident and Emergency Center, although the 500-bed capacity MBU is steadily ongoing.

According to the Ghana Health Service, Ashanti Region is the less endowed region in terms of health facilities, a region which until the recent population census, was the most populous in the country.

Meanwhile, there are over six hospital projects in the Region which were started by previous governments and have missed deadlines for almost five to ten years for obvious reasons.

Mentioning of Afari Military Hospital, which if completed will house over 500 patients, a 250-bed capacity regional hospital at Sawuah which is supposed to have been completed in 2017 is yet to see daylight, a 120-bed capacity at Fomena and Kumawu which have missed deadlines and a six new 40-bed capacity hospitals for which sods were cut ahead of the 2020 elections for the people of Sabronum, Manso Nkwanta, Twedie, Suame and Drobonso.

Source: 3news.com|Ghana