Kpandai District Hospital admits patients on bear floors for treatment

The only hospital in Kpandai district in the Northern region addmits patients on bear floors in the hospital for treatment due to lack of enough structures.

The hospital has become a threat to patients’ health due to infrastructural inadequacy.

The district hospital serves about 230 communities and yet it lacks microscopes for lab test and other amenities including groves, Cannulars and plasters which has become a big challenge for the hospital .

Most nurses complain to the Authorities as the hospital runs on only one type of cannular and non availability of gloves .

Cannula which involves connecting a tube into a patient's vein so that infusions can be inserted directly into the patient’s bloodstream. Cannulas (also known as venflons) which are available in various colours, each of which correspond to the size of the tube. Which the required size depends on: What will be infused, the age range Or, at the rate the infusion is to run.

In addition, the patients veins may dictate the size to use. for example you may only be able to insert a blue (small) cannula into an elderly patient's vein. Here is the case the hospital runs on only one type, which is Very bad for patients health wise.

Nurses also wear gloves as a protective barrier for themselves and the children. Which Gloves also create a barrier between germs and hands. They also help keep your hands clean and lessen your chance of getting germs that can make one sick. Nurses fear lacking 'such safety guide' could trigger an epidemic.

Our correspondent who visited the hospital found patients lying on the floor of the hospital receiving treatment, "he said most of the patients lying on the floor were being given blood transfusion".

Some of the patients who spoke to our portal cried as most of them could be infected with different illness. ”We were brought to this hospital and we were told the beds are full that’s why we are lying on the floor; we had no other option”.

The medical doctor for the hospital Dr. Raymond Atibila Aboungo said "We have only two beds in the labour ward and less than twenty in the Male, female and Children's- ward's respectively, so you can imagine what happens when the facility is overwhelmed with numbers”. Dr Raymond who described the situation as unfortunate said that is the only option.

He explained that, they hospital lack enough rooms to admit patients but efforts to get the matter resolved has proven futile.

“We lack enough structures, but we have enough beds, where to put them is the problem now, however if you have bed's and you don’t have enough structures, definitely you have to put the mattress on the floor for patients to lay on for infusion”.

Dr. Aboungo stated, “In 2011, the first doctor was posted to the hospital when it was converted from a polyclinic to a district hospital. But since then there has not been enough buildings that will complement us as a district hospital so he is appealing to the government or who cares to come to their aid” he added.

He Continued, Access to medical consumables, he revealed, is challenging as sometimes requests placed by staff to the regional health directorate is not what is served. “Our major problems here are availability of medical consumables and space, we don’t get orders we place for at the regional directorate".

In terms of poor and inaccessible roads linking CHPS zones, the unmotorable road network coupled with lack/poor ambulance services for referral cases in rural communities are disturbing and alarming. In fact, the single ambulance in the Kpandai District has broken down, thereby posing considerable risk to pregnant women in emergency circumstances. With the issue of transferring patients from this hospital has become one of the most difficult problem for the center in the sense that if you ask where the ambulance is now, "I wouldn't be able to tell you".

The Medical Doctor Concluded "there is more pressure on me as I am the only Medical Doctor here, at times I find it difficult to attend to patients due to the work loaded on me". He therefore called on the Government to come to their aid.