Korle-Bu stops doctors from eating from in-house canteen already running at a loss

Management of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital has banned doctors at the hospital from eating from its own canteen, which is currently running at a loss, and has outsourced the feeding of doctors to a food joint outside the hospital called Med Diner, 3FM News can confirm.

This hospital’s canteen was built in 1980 to prepare food for medical and other staff of the hospital as well as patients on admission. However, the canteen has for years been running at a loss due to an inflated contract signed between the hospital and L. B. Foods that supplies food items to the canteen.

Click for copy of one of the contracts

Documents in possession of 3FM 92.7 point to how food items were outrageously overpriced by the supplier.

The documents detail how the hospital’s canteen between December 2015 and November 2016 started running at a loss because L. B. Foods was selling items to them at a cutthroat price, at times tripling the cost.



The inflated cost became obvious following the findings of a market survey conducted under the directive of the hospital’s board. This was a contract approved by the same management that is now asking doctors not to eat from the canteen effective February 13, 2017, and signed by the former Chief Executive Officer of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Dr. Gilbert Buckle.

3FM News has also gathered that it took the intervention of the Public Procurement Authority to try and rectify the situation by requesting the use of a low value procurement returns form.

In their bid to save the canteen from a total collapse, the Director of Finance at the hospital, Bright Korkoryie signed a recent contract to outsource the feeding of the doctors.

Read copy of the contract with Med Diner

The senior staff association of the hospital is unhappy and has registered its displeasure with the development. An aggrieved senior staff protested, ‘‘We heard of it and started asking questions but they lied to me.

Having a contract sum of 30,000 to 188,000 all the perishable items that impress is used to buy was also contracted, making the amount to shoot up.

They claim the place is running at a loss, what is the target for profit? And this lose was caused by the inflated prices of the item. Instead of rectifying the issue by changing the supplier, you are sending the doctors out to eat. Have they thought of the implication on health delivery?’’

When contacted, the former board chairman Professor Mawuli Sallar explained what the previous board did to also salvage the situation at the time when they discovered the inflated prices.

‘‘When we came in we realized 80% of loses in the hospital was from expenditure so we started working on reducing it. I was the one who discovered the theft one day during an unusual runs. We then discussed it on the board with all management members and decided to cancel the contract and blacklist the contractor and terminate the appointment of the culprits but it was never done. The contracts were super inflated. If I can buy the same basket of food for a 100 cedis why should I give a contract for it to be sold to me at 210 cedis? And when we asked we were told it was typo error’’.

Signatory to the document, director of finance Bright korkoryie, refused to speak on the issue directing us to the public doctorate of the hospital.

However, the public relations department of the hospital also refused to speak on the issue describing it as an internal affair and that the hospital has decided not to make any explanation to the media.