Korle-Bu must stay alive

By Kofi Akordor
Accident victims lie groaning on the bare floor. Those luckier find solace on benches. In all cases, relatives are on hand to help in the administration of drips and other medications. They have to be available to push the wheelchairs, if they cab find one, while saying their silent prayers for the survival of their relatives.
This is not a scenario in some medical facility in a remote part of the country. Those who have ever had the unfortunate experience of rushing accident victims to the Accident Centre of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital will tell you that the picture painted above is too generous to describe the pathetic situation on the ground.
That is just a small part of the Korle-Bu story. Naturally, not all victims survive the ordeal, even though with better and more adequate resources, supported with more caring and dedicated health professionals, the story will be quite different.
Korle-Bu is a human institution which cannot escape the challenges that confront institutions of that nature. Already, as a teaching hospital and the nation’s largest and arguably the last referral medical facility which is also home to some of the best brains in the medical profession, Korle-Bu’s resources, both human and material, are under constant pressure.
It should have been a last resort but patients want the best medical attention they can get and so those with simple ailments that can be handled by the polyclinics and even lesser medical facilities prefer going straight to Korle-Bu and creating congestion that should not have been the case.
These cases of clear misuse of vital national resources notwithstanding, Korle-Bu, for its strategic role in health delivery in the country, can do better than it is doing now. Korle-Bu, for many, has become a huge jungle where one could easily get lost in an emergency situation and what could easily be a manageable situation could result in death because of bureaucracy, neglect or both.
A friend said he saw his wife die before him on a stretcher at the OPD because it was a Saturday and no medical officer was available to handle a life or death situation.
Maintaining operational and administrative discipline in a vast place such as Korle-Bu, with its array of different professional groups, cannot be an easy task. All the same, its operational efficiency could be greatly undermined if workers are left to do their own thing, to the detriment of the general public.
As it is now, it seems the centre cannot hold and things are falling apart. The chain of command is blurred and patients are victims of circumstances beyond their control. That is why response to emergency situations in the country’s last referral medical facility is not the best.
The human factor aside, the most baffling thing is the neglect of Korle-Bu in terms of vital installations and equipment. Some time ago, we were told almost all the lifts were not working. Health workers and relatives are compelled to hire the services of labourers to carry patients to upper floors of the wards and consulting rooms. Surely, that cannot be a gracious commentary on our number one teaching hospital in this 21st century. Even as you read this piece, the rehabilitation/replacement of the lifts is not complete.
Korle-Bu is overcrowded and basic facilities that should be standard for any medical facility are very often unavailable at the place we all boast of as our number one hospital.
This cannot be a question of lack of funds. Installing and maintaining lifts at Korle-Bu should not be too expensive for the Republic of Ghana, the land of gold, diamond, cocoa and now oil and gas. Somebody somewhere or some groups of people are simply not taking the life of our people seriously.
Last week, we were told that 13 surgical theatres at the hospital had to be temporarily closed down because major equipment at the Anaesthesia Department had broken down. Such was the importance of the equipment that apart from emergency cases, Korle-Bu had to suspend most surgical operations.
The question is, why should this happen to Korle-Bu? We were not told what caused the breakdown of the anaesthetic machine. Whatever the cause, have we observed good practices in terms of maintenance and back-up plans?
As it is, we are not likely to get the problem resolved sooner. We have been told the hospital will require more than US$1 million to procure new machines. Secondly, the Ministry of Health has started the long process of scanning the market to identify suppliers who can deliver the equipment promptly and at competitive cost, while at the same time making efforts to mobilise funds for the procurement.
Unless the President intervenes, as has always been the case in such matters, we are not likely to get a new anaesthetic machine in the nearest future. That will be a big blow to health delivery in the country, as we have been told that Korle-Bu handles an average of 1,500 surgical operations a month.
If Korle-Bu paints such a gloomy picture, then we just have to admit that our health delivery system is in serious crisis. It seems we have tolerated our human failures for far too long. We have taken things for granted because we know at the end of the day no one would be held accountable or at worst we shall blame everything on lack of funds. And that ends the matter.
Korle-Bu is our last hope when it comes to our survival and nothing should be spared to make it function to the satisfaction of the general public. Korle-Bu must stay alive if we should not die of what is within the capability of human beings.

fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
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