A maternity ward of a health facility
Our exploding healthcare management issues have brought us to the brink of healthcare challenges, collapse and national security catastrophe.
No bed syndrome or poor infrastructure and planning within our health institutions is taking hundreds of thousands of Ghanaian lives.
The emergencies are country-killing and not sustainable when we add road traffic accidents to the fray. This threatens the bedrock of our nation and economic security, and the productivity of the nation, and that fixing the health crisis will make our nation strong, productive and financially viable, and a respected developing country.
A series of bad decisions will expose the government to ruthless retaliation by professionals and adversely impact our health delivery as a nation, with serious economic and national security consequences.
This sweeping and unqualified, unjustified decision to always suspend leaders in healthcare over decisions made while in the line of duty has put us in a terrible situation.
The Health Minister has been conferred powers to address major problems for and on behalf of the President and the people of Ghana, but make no mistake, there are limitations, where the broad authority ends. This suspension of the KATH Chief Executive is particularly a poor judgment and must be reversed as soon as possible.
Just as a matter of common sense, when we interrogate the teaching of “first do no harm”, it means any intervention done under unsafe or serious pressures on any facility can or may cause further harm to patients and even clinicians. And in fact, when a facility has no further bed space or an appropriate safe environment to work in, very crucial steps must be taken.
The checks and balances need to be looked at to address the never-ending tension between the Minister and Healthcare professionals must be done carefully. A better system of allowing for the regulators to assess the situation, the decisions made, and the measures taken by Tamale, Ridge, Korle Bu and KATH.
The suspension certainly has not been well thought through and was done without appropriate examinations of the situation on the ground. Patient safety and clinical team safety, plus severe congestion at the hospital’s Emergency Department, are not to be taken lightly. We are not contending that the Minister does not have the authority, but the way and manner in which it is used.
The background activities leading to the decision about congestion at KATH must be interrogated, not the Chief Executive.
We are quick to attribute a system failure to individuals, and that must stop. I support the need to reverse the decision, so the strike action can also be reversed. The government needs to address the systemic issue and not blame or shift blame to the people working day and night to keep the healthcare running and to deliver safe care to the sick.
I recommend we allow the major hospitals to adopt 4 of the Agenda 111 hospitals each to be able to extend their reach to the communities they serve.
We have a health crisis on our hands, which has become a national security issue. Why are there hospitals that have to be commissioned, but we fail to do the needful?
The citizens will rise up and be awoken soon. We will be tempted to occupy the Health Ministry to demand our hospital beds and equipment, plus infrastructure.
Thanks.
By Dr. Adomako Kissi, Former Member of Parliament, Anyaa Sowutoum
