Ahafo Ano nurses abandon patients in search of water

Patients seeking medical attention at the Sabronum Health Centre in the Ahafo Ano North District of the Ashanti Region are daily left to their fate by nurses for hours as they go in search of water for the day's duties.

The Heath Centre has been without potable water in the last two years following the breakdown of their water system, forcing health personnel to trek about a kilometre daily carrying buckets on their heads to fetch water from a borehole in the town.

The situation is usually compounded by delays at the borehole site as health personnel have to queue with the residents of Sabronum to be able to fetch water from the borehole, which is the only source of potable water for the about 10,000 people in the area.

Health personnel say water plays a central role in the various activities performed at the facility hence the decision to spend some hours to fetch water. According to them, the lack of water at the facility is serious hampering effective health delivery.

This, they argued is because nurses are forced to abandon patients and other clinical activities to compete with the residents to access water from the only borehole facility in the community.

The Health Centre, established in 2003, is the only health facility in the area, and serves over twenty thousand people in seven communities.

"We have to go and fetch the water ourselves in conducting delivery because we don't have anybody to assist us. Most worrying is that, we have to go and struggle with the community members before getting water for our activities," Midwife of the Health Centre, Edith Akorfa told TV3.

She said, those seeking medical treatment sometimes get annoyed at the health ppersonnel for leaving them unattended to for long period.

Meanwhile, water is just one of the many challenges facing the Health Centre. Lack of mattresses and spaces to be used as wards.

At the time of TV3's visit, two sick children had to share one bed due to inadequate beds, a situation likely to compound their medical condition. Also, both male and female patients share the same ward.

Physician Assistant, Gifty Afriyie, has appealed for beds and mattresses as well as a means of transportation for referral cases.

She said, the road network is in a terrible state, thus, the absence of an ambulance is affecting their effectiveness in referring cases to Mankranso Government Hospital and Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.

Responding to the water issue, the Ahafo Ano North District Coordinating Director, Mohammed Yahaya said the assembly has plans to provide a mechanized borehole for the Health Centre by mid this year.

"We have an intervention of providing the health centre with a mechanized borehole and a nurses quarters under the Social Investment Fund. The contractor is expected to be on site and start working latest by April".

He was hopeful, the water crisis of the health centre would be solved by the mid 2016 if everything goes as planned.