Patients should not wait for relatives before receiving emergency care – GMA

The Ghana Medical Association (GMA) has called on the government to establish a dedicated emergency healthcare fund to remove financial barriers preventing patients from receiving urgent medical attention at hospitals.

The association’s General Secretary, Dr Richard Selormey, said Ghana’s emergency healthcare challenges went beyond the shortage of physical hospital beds, pointing to inadequate specialists, poorly coordinated patient referrals and delays caused by financial difficulties.

Speaking in an interview with Joy News, he explained that patients sometimes had to wait for relatives to arrive with money before receiving treatment, worsening delays in accessing emergency care.

“Even though it’s a serious public health crisis that we must pay very serious attention to and try to solve once and for all rather than dragging, we wanted to clarify to the public that no bed goes beyond just a physical bed,” he said.

Dr Selormey identified a shortage of emergency physicians, emergency nurses and emergency medical technicians as some of the major challenges affecting the delivery of emergency healthcare.

He disclosed that Ghana had an estimated 85 per cent shortage of emergency physicians, leaving several district hospitals without the specialists needed to manage critical cases.

“We are talking of an 85 per cent gap for emergency physicians, which means that most of them are just stuck in there. They are few, so most district hospitals do not have these specialists,” he explained.

The GMA General Secretary also raised concerns about the limited training available to some emergency nurses and medical technicians, particularly their ability to perform certain life-saving procedures while transporting patients in ambulances.

On the financial challenges, he said the association had proposed the establishment of a dedicated fund that would guarantee payment for emergency services provided by hospitals.

He explained that such an arrangement would ensure that hospitals could attend to patients immediately without requiring them to first overcome financial difficulties.

“We also talked about the fact that there was a need to establish a dedicated and clear financing so that people who need emergency care can be given the needed care by the hospitals with an assurance that the fund will pay them, so that the patient is not burdened with any financial barriers to receive that care,” he stated.

Dr Selormey said discussions had included possible funding sources such as allocating a portion of vehicle insurance premiums to the proposed fund or setting aside part of health insurance resources for emergency care.

He added that the government could also consider repurposing aspects of existing health financing arrangements to support the initiative.

The association further proposed improvements in hospital management and coordination to ensure that patients are moved efficiently between departments and facilities.

Dr Selormey acknowledged the Ministry of Health’s efforts to address coordination challenges through the introduction of a National Hospital Bed Management System, which was being piloted at the Regional Hospital and Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.

However, he called for the system to be expanded quickly, alongside stronger hospital management teams and better coordination between departments.

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