GHS WORKS HARD TO DECONGEST KATH

The management of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital and the Ghana Health Service are collaborating for the running of Specialists Medical Clinics at the hospitals in the Kumasi metropolis as part of long-term measures to effectively decongest the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital. 

 Under the arrangement, senior Physicians of the KATH would be posted to the beneficiary hospitals under the Ghana Health Service to help manage complicated health cases reported there.

 The Chief Executive of the KATH, Dr. Joseph Akpaloo made this known at a half-year performance Review Meeting of the hospital in Kumasi.

 According to the CEO, when the arrangement is finalized, Senior Physician Specialists will be posted to the hospitals in the Kumasi metropolis to help manage complicated cases to reduce the number of referred cases to KATH.

It is a fact that, even though the Ghana Health Service also under the Ministry of Health has a number of healthcare facilities in the metropolis and even beyond, many patients rather opt for the  KATH for health cases that could be easily handled at health centres. 

This has caused the congestion at the hospital. The Mid-year performance Review Meeting which brought together the Directors and Heads of the various Units of the hospital, was to enable the manager to take tock of their performance  during the first ix month of this year to know whether or not the facility was in the right direction regarding the set target for this year. In his report, Dr. Akpaloo notes that during the six month period under review, the hospital recorded increases in certain areas of operation such as in the OPD attendance, physiotherapy services as well as emergency admissions.

However, surgical operations dropped from 10 thousand, 663 during the same period of last year, to eight thousand, 488 in the first half of this year. 

On works and physical development, the hospital was able to upgrade its old mortuary to a 350-corps capacity at a cost of nearly 309 thousand Ghana Cedis while renovation and expansion works is ongoing on the Dental Unit. 

Dr. Akpaloo disclosed with satisfaction that maternal death rate at the facility improved one thousand, 1119.25 per every 100 thousand live births in 2014 to 1077 per live births in the first six month of 2015. 

Some of the works were possible through various initiatives including the Built-Operate and Transfer model as well and even Public Private Partnership initiative.

 The hospital has also entered into an MOU with D. Med Healthcare for the provision of five new Dialysis machine with plans to acquire additional CT Scan machines. Among the notable challenges is the high cost of oxygen generation from the hospital’s in-house oxygen plant which currently produce below capacity due to its obsolete nature.   

All the Unit Heads and the Directors made presentations on the performances of their area of operation. 

One of them is the Head of the Biostatistics Unit, Mr. Emmanuel Kusi Sarpong in hi presentation, said no maternal death was recorded at the Obstetric and Gynaecology Department during the period. 

Background

The Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital established more than 50 years ago, is one of Ghana’s few tertiary medical facilities whose current coverage spans the Ashanti region to even some of Ghana’s neighbouring countries and treats complicated health problems. It also serves as a teaching hospital for the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, KNUST, in Kumasi. However, over the years, KATH has had to contend with serious congestion concern from patient who visit the facility from outside its original operational area to seek expert medical care.