The Upper East Regional hospital is in dire need of doctors especially surgical doctors to aid health care delivery and to cater for its teeming client base in the Region.
The facility has a total of 10 Medical Officers including; three Cuban doctors who are currently on annual leave, leaving the entire facility of 220-bed capacity serving a population of about 1,124,193 with just seven doctors.
[contextly_sidebar id=”x9OzgVNfv79IEWO3e6a2cRhz4RYcX7lr”]Dr Patrick Atobrah, the Medical Director of the hospital, who disclosed this said the facility as a referral Centre of the Region had a Paediatrician and Gynaecologist as the only specialists.
“We do not easily get doctors at the Out-Patient Department,” he said.
The Director said the hospital would need a minimum of 30 Doctors of various categories to operate comfortably, and appealed to the government to post doctors to the hospital to aid in health delivery.
He said although efforts had to be put in place to attract doctors to the area, the hospital was constrained and could not fund such initiatives.
Dr Atobrah said apart from the lack of doctors which was a major challenge of the hospital, the facility had only one X-ray Technician and a Pharmacist which exerted pressure at the units especially the Pharmacy Unit where patients queue for several hours to be attended to.
He advised young health personnel especially doctors to accept postings to the region, disclosing that “they will see all the medical conditions they learned from their textbooks manifest in patients, and would boost their level of experience than staying in the Urban Centres.”
He expressed concern about the lack of water supply to the facility as most of the units had no source of water to run the hospital’s daily activities, adding that “although the Region was deprived, its natives were Ghanaians and deserved the maximum comfort in seeking health care services.”
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Source: GNA