The “Normality” Of A Broken Health System

Kweku Agyeman-Manu, Health Minister

A few weeks ago I posted something I saw on the streets of Ghana which I found quite distressing. A helpless patient was being conveyed in a taxi in the hospital in addition to this, the poor relatives of this victim were subjected to a humiliating ordeal of having to run through the traffic, beg drivers to give way to taxi carrying their relatives. However I found it horrifying that after I had posted this on my timeline, most comments on this post failed to see that is was wrong in the first place for a patient to be carried in taxi instead of being conveyed by a well equipped ambulance with qualified paramedics on board. The concentration was rather on the failure of drivers to give way. That was when it dawned me that we have gotten so used to the abnormal that it has eventually become a “new normal”.

Fast forward to last week, I saw a trending subject on social media, when a gentleman reportedly carried his uncle in his car to the Korle- bu teaching hospital and polyclinics respectively in which he lost his uncle again due to inefficient health care system. Just when I taught I had seen and heard the worst of our broken health care system, I was shocked to the marrow this time to see a video again on social media in which a little girl purportedly hit by driver was carried behind a car, the little said about the handling of the victim the better. Your guess is as good as mine as to what happened to this girl, she lost her life.

All of the above scenarios, points to very serious symptoms of a broken health system. In jurisdictions where the health of the citizens is taken seriously, none of the above would have happened. In the first place in an efficient health care system, all this gentleman who lost an uncle needed to was to an emergency line, where a well equipped ambulance with well trained paramedics will arrives, give his uncle a first aid whilst conveying him to the hospital. All communication lines active with the ambulance staff speaking with hospital staff to arrange the necessary staff and equipment to facilitate his smooth admission into the hospital. If even to receive palliative care.

This the tip of the ice berg, with have a non –existent ambulance service system to even begin with, patients are handled anyhow by commercial vehicles and persons with little knowledge on handling techniques during emergencies. The public health implications of this are dire. Have we thought of what can happen if a commercial vehicle carries a patient with a very deadly infectious disease eg ebola or lassa fever and immediately begins to go about his normal duties of picking up and dropping of clients.

It’s even more disheartening at the point of service delivery, there are simply non –existent equipments and logistics to work with coupled with a “a frustrated and ill prepared work force”. We will need to stand up as citizen to demand from our duty bearers a total revamp of our health care system if we want to stop hearing these horrifying and sad stories all the time.