Health Minister Kwabena Mintah Akandoh has personally visited the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) following fresh public outrage over a viral video showing patients receiving treatment on the floor of the facility’s Accident and Emergency Centre, pledging that the government will resolve the no-bed syndrome once and for all.
The video, which circulated on social media on March 20, 2026, showed patients described as frail and in need of urgent care lying on hard hospital floors amid an acute bed shortage. The footage reignited public anger over a crisis that has already cost lives this year.
During his on-site assessment, the minister was briefed by hospital management, who disputed the footage. The Chief Executive Officer of KBTH, Dr. Yakubu Seidu Adam, acknowledged that the emergency unit had recorded a surge in patient numbers but maintained that no one was left on the floor, saying some patients were made to sit in chairs but that patients were at no point made to sleep on the floor. Dr. Adam went further, suggesting the video may have been artificially generated, a claim that drew scrutiny from observers given the documented context of overcrowding at the facility.
The minister nonetheless acknowledged the structural dimensions of the problem. The no-bed crisis at Korle Bu did not begin with this video. In February 2026, a 29-year-old engineer, Charles Amissah, died after emergency medical technicians from the National Ambulance Service spent nearly three hours ferrying him between the Police Hospital, Ridge Hospital, and Korle Bu, all of which declined to admit him due to unavailability of beds. That tragedy triggered the interdiction of two doctors and two nurses at KBTH, a seven-member Ministry of Health investigation committee, and a presidential directive ordering health workers to admit emergency patients even when beds are unavailable.
That directive has led nurses to admit patients even when beds are unavailable, creating conditions where some are seated or placed on the floor while awaiting treatment, giving the viral footage a credible institutional context regardless of its origin.
The government has outlined plans to complement new emergency guidelines with accelerated hospital capacity investment, including the implementation of Ridge Hospital Phase II, completion of the Police Hospital project, La General Hospital, the Sewua Regional Hospital, and the Afari Military Hospital in the Ashanti Region.
The Health Minister assured the public that these commitments are being actively tracked and that the no-bed syndrome will not be allowed to continue as a recurring feature of Ghana’s public health system.
