TAMALE CITIZENS COMMEND HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATOR (PAGE 29)

Story: Zakaria Alhassan, Tamale

THE Concerned Citizens Association of Tamale (CCAT) has commended the new Director of Administration of the Tamale Teaching Hospital, Mr K.K. Boachie, for taking appropriate measures, since he assumed duty just a couple of weeks ago, to address some nagging problems affecting effective heath delivery service at the hospital.
According to the association, patients had often returned home from the hospital as a result of a lack of doctors to attend to their ailments, while some of those on admission sometimes did not even receive the necessary attention.
‘‘The call by the director of administration on medical doctors at the hospital to respect their contractual obligations is to say the least most welcome and commendable,’’ the associated stated.
In a statement signed by the President of the association, Mr Alhassan Basharu Daballi, noted that ‘‘an equally heart-warming and commendable action is the resolve of the new administration to deal decisively with doctors who refused to comply with the rules and regulations of the Ghana Health Service.
Last week, the hospital administration drew up a duty register for the month of February to guide the few doctors available at the hospital on their respective work schedules.
In a memorandum copied to the doctors concerned, the administrator reminded the doctors that ‘‘the hospital will also provide fuel allowances to the local doctors, and so the excuse by doctors that they have no vehicles will not be tolerated. It is only the expatriate doctors we ought to provide with transport’’.
The association said with that initiative, a giant step had been taken to address one of the major difficulties patients went through at the hospital.
The president of the association said in the past, the issue of absentee or truant doctors had been blamed squarely on the management, who they claimed did not put in measures to ensure that doctors at the hospital undertook their professional duties with much concern, love and respect to their contractual obligations.
‘‘It is in the light of this development that we register our happiness and strong desire to support the cause of the new director of administration,’’ the statement added.
‘‘We would equally like to implore the administrator to extend these measures to cover nurses and other health personnel as some of them indulge in activities that are purely unprofessional, especially in the area of human relations,’’ the association said.
Apart from the inadequate number of doctors and other health personnel, facilities and structures at the hospital, which were constructed more than 30 years ago, have also deteriorated over the years.
A lot has been said and written about this deplorable state of the hospital, but very little has been done to improve on the situation.
The present condition of the hospital must, therefore, be of grave concern to all well-meaning Ghanaians, particularly those from the north as equipment and facilities at the only referral hospital in the entire three northern regions and beyond have received only little attention.
Elevating the hospital to a teaching hospital is only limited in name as facilities and the needed human resource are not commensurate with it or are anywhere near either of the nation’s existing teaching hospitals such as the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra and Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi.