Korle Bu Hospital To Operate Executive Wing This Year – Acting CEO

Management of Korle Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) would this year operate an Executive Wing of the hospital to offer quick and efficient medical services to busy patients who can afford.

It would also put in place attractive investments such as a car park, modern restaurant, hotel and other commercial centres to serve the Korle Bu community and its environs. This is to help Korle Bu generate enough money to invest in other projects of the hospital.

Rev. Albert Botchway, Acting CEO of the hospital said this at the 2013 performance review on Monday.

The annual review is to take stock of performance targets and goals that were set at the beginning of the year and also aimed at learning from challenges in order to make significant improvements in the year 2014.

The initiative, he said, was not to stifle the provision of healthcare to their clients who would attend the main hospital but to expand healthcare services in the hospital.

“Let me also add that this will serve as a pilot scheme for the bigger plan of building an ultra-modern executive hospital, comparable to any in the world. This, when done, will save the Government the expenditure on foreign medical check-ups and treatment.”

According to him, management would also undertake some major projects and complete them by December 2014, such as the completion of a four-storey Reproductive Health and Family Planning Centre, to replace the six decades life span of the Aluminium Gynae Emergency and the completion of the SSNIT flat which had become the den of thieves.

He said KBTH would tighten its expenditure, cut down on waste and block leakages in the system to move the hospital forward.

“One thing that must be our focus this year is to tighten our expenditure. Korle Bu would go nowhere, in spite of the massive progress and development if management and staff do not cut down on wastage.”

Under the year under review, Management decided to expand stroke management in the hospital and partnered with Wessex-Ghana Stroke Partnership UK, to construct a new stroke ward which was commissioned on October 7.

The new stroke ward has, since then, improved and increased training in the management, diagnosis and care of patients with stroke in Ghana and also served patients from the West African Sub-region.

The Paediatric Surgery Theatre – a theatre which was shut down for almost ten years due to structural defects and other problems, had been rehabilitated and re-equipped under the National Medical Equipment Replacement Project (NMERP), relieving the hospital of the burden of undertaking this project from its own resources and reduced waiting time for children who are due for surgery.

The year 2013 also saw the completion and commissioning of the Catering Department project, and now provides a spacious and conducive environment for its staff to serve good and hygienic meals for both staff and patients.

The Laundry Department has also benefited from the retooling package and has been renovated and re-equipped and is expected to offer services to other health facilities in the Accra-Sub Metro at a reduced fees to sister-health institutions.

The acting CEO said the General Radiography Department now had a new MRI and a 640-slide CT Scan and noted that the 640-slide CT was top of the range as well as a new Mammography machine and other general X’ray equipment, all geared to offer seamless services to patients.

On the hospital’s outlook for 2014, he said Management had started the conversion of the Central Out Patient Department into a new Emergency Centre for the Emergency Medicine Department, while the clinics for general surgery and those for the medical department had also been moved to the Surgical Department and Ward L respectively.

The HFC Bank payment point and other offices that were at the Central OPD have all been moved. The site had been handed over to Belstar Development Llb and the project is slated to be completed hopefully, in 12 weeks.

The Emergency Centre, when completed, will increase the current bed capacity of 35 to over 75. It is to expand and improve emergency services in the hospital, while renovation works on the main Surgical Theatre suites had been successfully completed and ready for use.

Work on the £3.5 million West Africa Moorfields Eye Centre is almost completed and it is expected to be commissioned this year.

With this new centre KBTH would be able to attend to most eye diseases and offer training for Ghanaians and citizens of other countries in the West African sub-region.

He announced that to motivate staff, there was going to be free Health Care for staff beyond the NHIS and noted the fine details were yet to be done and this would be announced in due course, in addition to half year bonuses for staff based on performance as well as free Friday wear for all staff.

“As per our agreement and schedule for the payment of arrears for nurses and doctors who went on the famous strike action, the second three months will be paid by the end of this month and the rest in July and September this year,” he said, and commended management and staff for a successful and a befitting 90th anniversary celebration.