No bed syndrome has become one of the surging challenges in healthcare facilities in the country, a situation where patients or clients are asked to go home or seek care elsewhere because of non-availability of hospital beds.
The situation attracted public attention within the week when news broke that a 70-year-old man was turned away from Lekma Hospital here in Accra, a situation which according to relatives resulted in his untimely death.
This sad development has dominated all public discourse in various media platforms and in parliament as well.
The Speaker of Parliament speaking to the issue requested investigation to be conducted into the incident to discourage future similar occurrence but speaking on the matter on Ahotor Morning show program dubbed “Oman mu msem” Mr Ofosu Ampofo, Board Chairman of Ghana Ports and Harbour Authority in the erstwhile Mahama administration expressed a contrary view.
He queried Parliament’s decision to set up a team to investigate a situation that undeniably, though ugly but has become rampant in various hospitals and described the move as a wasteful venture, instead he called on Parliament to ask the president why he has abandoned the 600 bed capacity at Legon and International Marinetime hospital with state of the art equipment.
“These two facilities are equipped with modern medical equipment such MRI, Mammogram machine, dialysis machine etc, they should ask the president why these hospitals are not working instead of investigating a situation that has become rampant and phenomenal in our system, we all know it’s a problem and we must find a comprehensive approach to solving what has become a systemic challenge. Are we going to investigate every single incident coming out of our hospitals instead of adopting a holistic approach?”
UGMC is a modern facility for training of medical staffs, nurses, and other laboratory technicians. Again it’s going to provide for a facility for medical research into modern exploration in sciences to provide empirical data to back practice and to find solutions and alternative care to the emerging challenges in our the healthcare industry.
He added that, there are several CHIPS compounds the past NDC administration started and these facilities have been left to rot for whatever reasons known to government and his team.
Mr Ampofo also expressed worry about the sad state of these facilities which were set up with the intention of bridging the gaps in our health system in rural communities. A lot of sacrifices went into these projects many of which were a product of abject benevolence of former government officials who cut their pay for these facilities.
“l can say on authority that these important facilities have been abandoned by Akufo-Addo government knowing very well our country is faced with challenges in terms of accessibility to healthcare in rural areas and even in the cities.
Speaking on the national ID card controversy going on in Parliament, he throwed his support to the minority in Parliament indicating that there are several issues concerning the issuance of national card which must be addressed going forward. He challenged the basis for attempting to use passport and birth certificate to establish one’s nationality when indeed the constitution speaks otherwise. He cautioned that the actions of the president are gradually pushing the country into constitutional crises. “they are preparing the grounds for grand agenda” the NPP know very well that they have the majority in Parliament, the whole exercise is tainted with political colours, the person leading the NIA (Dr. Ken Attafuah)himself is a “political animal”, he was part of the legal team that defended the NPP in the electoral petition case so if l tell you the whole exercise is being used as a political tool and a ploy to disenfranchise Ghanaians in future elections, you must believe it but we must all resist this lawless imposition at all cost.
On the same program was Ivan Kyei Innocent, who also questioned the legitimacy of basing nationality on birth certificate and passport only, he indicated that it’s very easy for foreign nationals to own both birth certificates and passports because our systems are porous reeling with administration malfeasance. “The whole agenda is a political calculation to legitimize certain group of people the NPP believe are not Ghanaians but decides elections in this country”. They must be stopped, he concluded.
Ivan Kyei Innocent|ahotoronline.com|Ghana
