News broke out, again, of the death of an expectant mother who had to do the unthinkable in her precarious state of climbing 6 flights of concrete stairs to the maternity ward of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital. She reportedly died minutes upon making it up the final row of stairs to that ward.
These sorts of deaths, as inexcusable as they might be, must not be allowed to continue especially at this point in the nation’s history when our colonial masters, the Queen and her Crown government, support free maternity care delivery throughout the country with millions of their tax payers’ money.
What level of irresponsibility could this be for the hospital administrators, not only in Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, but all other teaching hospitals and polyclinics benefiting or not from this facility, to put expectant mothers through the wobbly journey of climbing concrete stairs on these high rising and old blocks in our hospitals?
What makes the situation even more dangerous is the rampant breakdown of lifts (escalators) in the Korle Bu teaching hospital thus forcing doctors, fathers, mothers and husbands to carry pregnant and expectant mothers of their backs and shoulders in order to transport them up the maternity ward on these endless staircases. Whoever might have advised, designed, positioned and constructed the maternity ward as high as on the sixth (6th) floor of this colonial building would best pass for an idiot, knowing too well the purpose of the ward, No wonder, maternal mortality in the hospital are so high.
A nursing mother who gave birth to a premature baby after hours of caesarean surgery broke down in tears while narrating her ordeal of ascending and descending these terrifying flights of staircases to and from the ground and the sixth floor just to breastfeed her premature infant. Her tears did not only send shudders down my spine but also provoked outrage in many listeners, at hospital management all over the country, if nothing could have been done over the past fifteen years to either redesign, renovate and relocate the maternity blocks from the high rising storey buildings to ground floors and other buildings built and furnished with state-of-the art facilities.
I doubt if any father who has witnessed the struggles, tears and agony of his loving wife at Korle Bu in the quest to birth out their fruit of love, would consider impregnating the wife again after this terrifying scenario if the wife survives this torture.
I wonder why human rights activists and the women’s’ rights activists organizations have turned a blind eye and a death ear to the piercing cries of their contemporaries. While it is common for these interest groups to go digging and make unguarded statements in areas where their interest does not lie, especially in politics and governance, they have totally ignored their call to defend the rights of their own genders and citizens in the regard.
Medically, what is more life threatening than a patient who had just undergone any form of surgery to engage herself in a vigorous activity such as running up and down a flight of concrete stairs three times in a day. This situation is just the tip of the iceberg of the bigger picture of family relations, husbands, parents, nurses and doctors running helter-skelter in search of water, lanterns, candles and torchlight to perform one task or the other in their frustrations to save helpless lives?
As regards the broken down lifts in the maternity block, the Acting PRO of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Mr. Kojo Opoku Manu, blamed the situation on the rampant power outages that have taken over the nation by surprise (after almost ten months of uninterrupted electricity supply).
According to a news report on an Accra Based radio station, Mr Opoku Manu insisted that though the hospital had backup generators, the “discotheque style” power interruption by the electricity company of Ghana has resulted in the collapse of the lifts. Hours after granting this interview, it was confirmed that the lifts in question have been fixed.
This report brings two issues to the fore. The first being whether it had to take the tears of an expectant mother who had just undergone caesarean surgery and the radio station to correct this dangerous and avoidable situation. Ghanaians will recollect that soon after Dr. George Sipa Yankey, the resigned Health Minister , assumed office, he took a tour to all government health facilities in the country to ascertain issues on the ground as they are experienced by the people of Ghana. He was shocked, to see for himself, that the lift in the maternity ward had broken down for weeks and no one was doing anything about it. He immediately gave the hospital a two (2) week ultimatum to fix the lift and also pay arrears of some category of health workers in the hospital who earlier threatened a strike action. The lift was immediately fixed until it broke down again.
The second issue it invokes is the management style of our state institutions and hospitals. The Acting PRO of Korle Bu Hospital again intimated that government has approved funds for the purchase of new lifts for the replacement of all existing ones on the block. He further explained that the lifts are to be brought in from foreign lands and that it takes time for the airlifting of the equipment and the installation. A question worth asking is that at what point was the requests made and at what point was the funds approved and again, what time table is the hospital administrators working with for the permanent solution to the problem and if the ward is going to be left where it is currently located.
I am not sure that the hospital administrators are adopting a ‘wait and see’ attitude to finding quick solution to this and the acute water crises that has rocked the hospital over the past three (3) weeks especially on the back of reports from the Mamobi Polyclinic that, but for Ms Hannah Bissiw’s efforts from the Ministry of Water Resources, the Polytechnic would still not have tasted clean pipe borne water after fifteen (15) years of interruption. This looks scary and I hope the administrators of the Country’s Teaching Hospitals would adopted a more proactive and caring attitude to their work in consonance with the President’s mantra of “ I care for you” , upon which he successfully campaigned and appointed some of them to represent his interest in these public institutions.
If the decision were mine to take, I would rather the maternity ward was relocated somewhere on the ground floor or the first (1st) floor in the inevitable circumstance as part of long term measures to address this problem.
Additionally, a complaints’ and queries outfit must be opened under the public relations outfit to better address the problem of information flow and information management in the hospital. It might be possible that hospital administrators only hear of these challenges after the occurrence of a fatal accident. In the absence of this , the status quo remains unchanged as no one seem to care what happens to who and who cares about the other.
The establishment of this unit will be a convergent point for complaints, queries, reports and suggestions from patients and doctors, nurses and workers as well in the dissemination of information to the public and patients.
The Electricity Company of Ghana, at whom all fingers seem to be pointing, must clean their chambers in order to render quality service to the hospital and the public. I am sure very little has changed in the quality of service that ECG provides the public over the past 8 years though tariffs have increased more than 200 percent (2007).
At least adequate notice must be served the hospital administrators as and when their lines are scheduled for any temporary interruption for the hospital to be adequately aware and prepared to ensure free flow of service delivery especially in emergency situations.
The hospital should embark on a project of installing adequate water reservoirs on all blocks as soon as possible. These water reservoirs are to be monitored by the Estate Department of the hospital. The reservoirs must be stocked daily whether water flows or not so that the hospital will never be found wanting even if water supply is interrupted without notice for at least three days until the supply is restored.
The Korle Bu Teaching Hospital is the one of the finest, if not the finest, hospitals in the country and we cannot afford to stand aloof to watch the hospital collapse due to causes that could be avoided if management were more proactive in dealing with the daily challenges that mitigates the smooth running of the hospital.
I am not sure that it would be a pleasant sight for one to rush a loved one to the Korle Bu Hospital under life threatening circumstances, to be told rudely in the face by a hospital staff that due to the absence of water, electricity of a lift, there was nothing they could do about you and your loved one’s helpless situation. It could be very paranoiac and the earlier we add our voices to this cause, the better for our future as a nation.
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