The Chairman of the Health Committee of Parliament, Joseph Yieleh Chireh, has suggested the development of more health facilities in the Tema metropolis to ease the pressure on the Tema General Hospital.
Checks by Citi News at the Tema General Hospital on Thursday, revealed that a dire infrastructure deficit is affecting healthcare delivery to the extent that between four to six newborns are sharing a single bed at the maternity ward.
[contextly_sidebar id=”rQ1eCFdiylgvNILicHJc3hWic8ITXwmA”]The situation according to Citi News’ Elvis Washington, is creating discomfort and also posing a health risk for the mothers and their babies.
The maternity ward, which should take about six women, takes nearly 36 mothers, according to the Medical Superintendent of the Hospital, Dr. Kwabena Adusei.
Elvis Washington, who visited the facility reported that about four to six nursing mothers together with their babies have to share a single bed at the facility.
More health facilities will ease pressure
Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show, Mr. Yieleh Chireh, also a former Health Minister, noted that the pressure on the Tema General Hospital, could be alleviated by spreading out health infrastructure in the Tema metropolis in the form of polyclinics.
“We need to build more facilities but in the case of Tema, it is not about building more structures in that existing hospital. It is to spread out in the form of polyclinics that can take care of a number of people.”
According to him, “increasing the number of facilities is certainly a must because even if you ensure that the few people the get service in Tema Hospital are treated well; but the larger number who are not around Tema, what are they going to do?”
According to Mr. Chireh, the solution to this problem also lay in the expansion of infrastructure at the Tema General Hospital, because the problem of women sharing a bed was not a question of lack of beds but a lack of space.
“So when the government is increasing by building more hospitals, clinics and all that, it is to increase the number of beds and that is what the NDC government is doing. By the close for this year, we should be getting close to 6,000 new beds.”
Mr. Chireh also cited the upgrading of the Ridge Hospital as a development that will further ease the pressure on the Tema General Hospital.
“…Because the Ridge hospital is being rehabilitated to be a regional hospital, it certainly will take of some burden off Tema.”
Make Tema General Hospital a Regional Hospital
He further suggested that the Tema General Hospital be treated as a regional hospital with the accompanying development of specialization to give it a referral status, so it can cater for areas spanning all the way to Akosombo.
“Tema should be treated as a region in terms as health so that the eastern half of all the villages and other places for Akosombo up to the point in Tema; it should be a referral center. The next stage should be targeting the Tema hospital as one of the places to increase the capacity in terms of building more facilities.”
Pressure on Tema General Hospital
The Tema General Hospital which was constructed in 1954 by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s government, was built to serve as a health post to take care of the engineers who were constructing the Tema Harbour.
But the facility, which has transformed over the years, is now serving over 900, 000 people in its catchment area.
The pressure on the facility is worsened by the number of accident victims recorded on the Tema-Motorway and other major roads close to the hospital.
Adjacent to the delivery ward, is an abandoned three-storey building which was started by the then Kufuor government in 2008, to address the congestion problem at the maternity ward; but Elvis Washington said the project has since been abandoned.
The Medical Superintendent, Dr. Kwabena Adusei, told Citi News, the hospital is overstretched to carry out its core duties.
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By Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana