Bolgatanga, Oct. 28, – The Upper East Regional hospital is in dire
need of Doctors especially Surgical Doctors to aid health care delivery and to
cater for its teeming client base in the Region.
The facility has a total of 10
Medical Officers including; three Cuban doctors who are currently on annual
leave, leaving the entire facility of 220 bed capacity serving a population of
about 1,124,193 with just seven doctors.
Dr Patrick Atobrah, the Medical
Director of the hospital, who disclosed this to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in
an interview in Bolgatanga, said the facility as a referral Centre of the
Region had a Paediatrician and Gynaecologist as the only specialists.
“We do not easily get doctors at
the Out-Patient Department,” he said.
The Director said the hospital
would need a minimum of 30 Doctors of various categories to operate
comfortably, and appealed to the government to post doctors to the hospital to
aid in health delivery.
He said although efforts had to
be put in place to attract doctors to the area, the hospital was constrained
and could not fund such initiatives.
Dr Atobrah said apart from the
lack of doctors which was a major challenge of the hospital, the facility had
only one X-ray Technician and a Pharmacist which exerted pressure at the units
especially the Pharmacy Unit where patients cue for several hours to be
attended to.
He advised young health personnel
especially doctors to accept postings to the Region, disclosing that “they will
see all the medical conditions they learnt from their textbooks manifest in
patients, and would boost their level of experience than staying in the Urban
Centres.”
He expressed concern about the
lack of water supply to the facility as most of the units had no source of
water to run the hospital’s daily activities, adding that “although the Region
was deprived, its natives were Ghanaians and deserved the maximum comfort in
seeking health care services.”
Mr Zakariah Yakubu, the Head of
Administration, appealed to duty bearers to ensure that Medical Doctors posted
to government facilities reported without fail.
He advocated the decentralisation
of appointments to the Regional level so that doctors could be distributed
accordingly, and said“If you post someone and the person refuses to come, no
government hospital should absorb that person.”
The Head of Administration called
on government to institute special packages for doctors who accepted postings
to deprived areas as a means to motivate them to stay at rural areas where
their services were most needed.
Mr Yakubu who said peace was a cardinal component that could
attract people who may want to work in the Region, appealed to stakeholders to
uphold the peace in the Region to attract professionals especially doctors to
the area.
Following the concern raised by
the Medical Director, the GNA visited all the units to ascertain the water
situation of the facility.
At the Intensive Care Unit (ICU),
Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), Maternity and Gynaecological wards and all
its theatres depended on what the nurses called “Veronica Bucket” which they
usually fill with water on daily bases from overhead tanks situated at vantage
points.
Madam Felicia Issah, a Nursing
Officer and Deputy Ward in charge at the Paediatric Unit, described the water
situation at the unit as unhygienic, as a cup was often used to fetch water
from a container with assistance from another colleague for hand washing since
the unit’s “Veronica Bucket” broke down.
GNA
No comments:
Post a Comment