No-Bed Syndrome: Mahama orders bigger emergency units at four major hospitals

President John Dramani Mahama has announced plans to expand emergency bed capacity at four major hospitals, as government tries to deal with the No-Bed Syndrome that has long left patients stranded.

Speaking at the 68th Annual General Conference of the Ghana Medical Association on Friday, November 6, he said the Accident and Emergency Centres at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Tamale Teaching Hospital and the 37 Military Hospital will be expanded.

Work is expected to start next year and each centre will have emergency beds equal to at least 10 percent of the hospital’s functional beds.

“We are therefore implementing measures to expand emergency bed capacity to at least 10 percent of each facility’s functional bed capacity,” the President said.

At Korle Bu, that means more than doubling emergency beds from 65 to at least 150. The new space will come with more medical staff, equipment, oxygen and other supplies so it can run fully from the day it opens.

Patients will not have to wait for those works to finish before getting some relief. The Ghana Armed Forces Critical Care and Emergency Hospital opens to the public today, to help hospitals cope when emergency cases surge.

“Indeed, it is opening today, and from today, the facility will start receiving patients,” he said.

The President also had a message for hospitals on how they treat patients in the meantime. A lack of beds, he said, must not be a reason to send away someone in critical condition.

“When a patient arrives in critical condition, we cannot simply say, ‘No bed, no bed, go somewhere else.’ At the very least, the patient must be assessed,” he said.

Where a facility cannot give the treatment a patient needs, he added, it must stabilise the patient as far as it can before arranging a transfer to a hospital that can.

To make those transfers smoother, government has piloted an Integrated Bed Management and Referral Coordination System. It involves seven major health facilities and the National Ambulance Service.