Challenges At Korle Bu Can’t Be Solved Internally

The problems with emergency healthcare at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital will persist if confidence in the healthcare system nationwide is not restored, the MP for Bawku Central, Mahama Ayariga has said.

“To imagine that someone can sit in Korle Bu and solve the problems in Korle Bu in isolation; I think it is laughable,” the MP said on The Big Issue.

Following a week in which patients were receiving emergency treatment on the floor and in chairs at Korle Bu, Mr. Ayariga stressed that the healthcare problems had to do with problematic systems around the hospital.

The pressure on the hospital’s facilities has been viewed as a result of the Ministry of Health's directive to hospitals not to turn away patients in emergency situations over lack of beds.

Managers of the teaching hospital have subsequently been directed not to attend to patients with non-critical ailments.

“Once the system is not properly planned, everybody, in a quest to say alive in an emergency, the person is running to that one place they know that their chances of surviving would be very high. They will disregard even the minimal operating systems around them and run there [to Korle Bu],” he said.

“People have lost confidence in the systems around Korle Bu and will only go to Korle Bu… because when you get there, no matter what, there will be somebody to attend to you because, as a teaching hospital, you have hundreds of students, housemen.”

A new facility at the Accident and Emergency Centre of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital is expected to be opened on Friday .

The Board Chairman of Korle Bu, Dr. Bernard Okoe Boye said this was to address capacity problems at the Emergency Centre at the hospital.

Dr. Okoe Boye
Dr. Oko Boye said it will require a public-private partnership to address challenges bedevilling Korle Bu.

But these measures are unlikely to be enough, according to Mr. Ayariga.

“Until they sit and reflect on the root problem of the crises and realise that it is a systems problem… we will continue day in day out to have this experience,” he said.