body-container-line-1
15.03.2016 Feature Article

Ghana @ 59: A Joke As Kath Swims In Bedbugs, Inadequate Basic Needs

Ghana  59: A Joke As Kath Swims In Bedbugs, Inadequate Basic Needs
15.03.2016 LISTEN

Last Sunday, 6th March, 2016; Ghana my beloved country was 59 years old from colonial rule. It was a great news and passion for the then awesome statesmen under the able leadership of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the first president of Ghana to announce to the good people of this land that, after so many years of dictatorship from foreign leaders, Ghana was from 6th March 1957 going to rule herself. It meant freedom for the people. But did we actually gain the freedom we wanted as a nation?

The answer is a big NO!
This is not to say our forefathers did not help us by securing our independence but what has become of the freedom we declared that very day is the problem. We have had several forms of governance; military or dictatorship and rule of law (self rule), in other words democracy. To me, the second form of governance has done more harm to us than good. Democracy has bedeviled our quest and passion for growth. No country can develop through democracy but that is what we have chosen to.

After 59 years of independence, Ghana, comparatively has nothing to offer. India and Malaysia who are our peers are by far better than Ghana. But why should it be so? Bad and poor leadership is the reason. Ghana has failed in almost every developmental exam she has taken. From Civilization to Agriculture through to industrialization and Technology then to security; we have failed all these four transformations the world has gone through.

Today, the United States, France,Germany, UK and other European countries spends much of their resources on building efficient security system....here we are still trying to make our country food secured. Is it a curse? We ought to be more than serious for once.

I did not take part in this year's independence day celebration. My two (2) day old nephew was bleeding and was admitted at the Mother and Baby Unit (MBU) of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi. This is a day I will never delete from my memories not because my nephew was sick but what I saw.

As the president of the republic was on television making long-story empty promises and non existent legacies of Ghana, the entire MBU section of KATH was full of bedbugs. Yes! This is what I saw with my naked eyes. In this 21st century world, bedbugs are friends of the people in Ghana. I did not have the opportunity to enter the chamber in which the children are kept under light rays on beds but upon sneaking my neck, I again noticed the chamber was badly overcrowded with children.

As I stood ashamed, I asked a nurse passing by how they manage to work in such an overcrowded room and she was much troubled as I was. She said "my brother, we are seriously worried but if we don't manage too, we will loose several innocent babies...we force ourselves to work here. Sometimes, even gloves and oxygen to work on these babies is a problem". At 59, we cannot even furnish our big hospitals with gloves? Are we serious? People who come to visit their loved ones admitted in this facility are forced to stand for hours because the place is too small to accommodate more than 25 visitors with chairs.

The few wooden chairs there have also turned to be a breeding place for bedbugs. The security at post said something which I agree with her. It was an answer to a question someone asked concerning these bedbugs. She said, " we would like to fumigate this place but the problem is, where are we going to move these sick babies to before fumigating this place"? This bounds to inadequate facilities in the hospital. So can't we put in place measures to avoid this shame?

Another sad event was when a nursing mother who entered to feed her baby when it was time to feed them. As she entered, she needed a place to sit so that she can be comfortable to feed her baby boy. So she resorted to a nearby chair. Unfortunately, this chair was used as a hook to hold one broken bed housing three babies for treatment. As she unknowingly removed the chair, the bed fell with three babies, one of them was on water injection. So sad to see, I was confused in mind. So is the Ghana at 59 we are celebrating today? I asked myself.

It was barely a week past when our president was in parliament painting a very nice picture of our health sector and its infrastructure as far as his NDC government was concerned. Didn't someone alert the president this sad situation at KATH? If the second largest health facility after Korle-Bu Teaching hospital is far behind meeting the requirement of making sure sick babies are kept and treated well, what then could be of our so-called District health facilities (District hospitals)?

What happened to the over USD 240million President Mahama said his government has invested into a so-called medical equipment replacement scheme?

Someone ought to explain to me.
The only emergency incubator at KATH is as old as perhaps, the word old itself. Yes, it so old and I can't even tell if it was still working because as I saw it, it was standing. But let me also hasten to applaud the nurses and Medical officials handling that facitlity at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital including all staff, they are very professional and deligent in discharging their duties. If what I saw in these people the calibre of people we have as staffs and officials in the MBU, then the director in charge must be hailed as well as the entire staff when it comes to professionalism.

At a point, I was so much convinced that, if these people had the basic needs to facilitate in discharging their duties, they would do much better and child mortality in that facility I am sure would reduce to the barest minimum. Thumbs up to you all!! Continue to serves your country in such zeal and God will reward you.

This issue of inadequate facilities and equipments is not perculiar to only the MBU. I know and can again testify to it when in December,2015, my colleague at work, Bornaventure Kwame Tarkpah was admitted at the Accident and Emergency Unit of KATH. Kwame has got choked with meat tendron in his oesophagus and was transferred from the Amansie Central District Hospital in Jacobu to KATH for treatment. Before then, my colleague had not taken any water or food for 24 hours.

Upon reaching the Emergency was at about 12a.m, we were told the Doctor in charge had closed for the day. There was no doctor in replacement as at that time. Kwame have to keep suffering till the next morning. Unfortunately, it was the first Friday of December which is dubbed as a public holiday. It was a farmers' day celebration. So for the whole day too, we were told the Medical officer in charge of E &T centre will not come to work. So he was still kept at emergency unit still without water and food.

Kwame has to force and fight for a transfer from the Emergency centre to ward. This was made possible at arround 2:30pm same day. Suprisingly, at the E & T ward, we were made to wait for hours for someone waiting to be discharged that very day to leaves before my friend could be assigned to that vaccant bed. So one colleague who with me went to inquire from one the nurses as to when the doctor will be available to treat our friend, we were told the Doctor had come there since morning waiting for patients to come for treatment but no one was available so he left after taking care of the few people who were there.

Negligence of the staff at the emergency unit has caused my suffering colleague to wait for another whole day to be treated and still no food nor water had entered the system. His throat was blocked completely with the meet.

It was on the third day a doctor came to enforce some treatment on him. Even that day, he was just given some drug list to buy and prepare the next day for the theartre. A patient was choked with meet was treated in about 5days. So what was the essence of calling that facility and emergency centre? Five days was enough to let my colleague die if the situation called for him to die. God saved him.

They also lacked facilities that could link them to the situations in the various wards. In this 21st century Ghana, can we not afford online networking of our health facilities and units to their energency wards? This is just a basic technology. We need serious brains to lead our actual and real transformations. Our leaders ought to know better. We must be serious as a nation.

The Komfo Anokye hospital is not just a hospital but a teaching hospital used in training our upcoming medical professionals so if they don't have the necessary and basic equipments to operate, how then do these medical students learn something practically? Ghana is what you and I have and we must handle it with caution. There is no place like Ghana.

I am doing my part as an agriculturalist and enterprenuer. I have on several times in collaboration with some colleagues organized agricultural education for a our farmers in rural communties with no fee. Both animal and crop farmers have benefitted from this. We have also thought people on mushroom production and grasscutter farming.

All these were done voluntarily. I still have the passion to teach and educate anyone who needs my services for free even though I am unemployed after school. I love to that because I see helping a fellow countryman as serving my own self.

I wish you will have same spirit and determination in whatever profession you are into.

Ghana can collectively be built...two heads are better than one. Do your part and I will also do my part so we can see the transformation we need.

God bless our homeland Ghana!
The writer:
Richard Sarpong
(An agriculturalist and enterprenuer)
Email: [email protected]

body-container-line