MPs bemoan state of Tamale Teaching Hospital

Tamale, June 16, GNA- Mr. Mathias Asoma Puozaa, Member of Parliament (MP) for Nadowli East, at the weekend bemoan the state of the Tamale Teaching Hospital and called for immediate measures by government to rehabilitate the health facility to befit its status. He recommended that a permanent standby generator must be provided for the hospital to overcome any eventuality and save lives. Mr. Puozaa expressed the sentiments when he led a four-member Parliamentary Select Committee on Health that paid a familiarisation visit to the hospital.

It was one of the visits planed for the Northern and Brong Ahafo regions to enable members of the committee to assess health care delivery at health facilities and to make recommendations to government for improvement.

The delegation inspected the National Health Insurance Secretariat within the hospital, the surgical and Septic Wards, maternity and the Children's wards, as well as the X-ray department. Mr. Puozaa said originally, the delegation was only to familiarise itself with the activities of the National Health Insurance Scheme in the two regions but decided to get first-hand information about the hospital.

He said if facilities at the hospital were improved, the Teaching Hospital would be able to take care of the health needs of the people in the Upper West, Upper East and Northern Regions and the Sahelian countries and parts of Brong Ahafo and Volta regions. He said this would reduce the burden on the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital and the Komfo-Anokye Teaching Hospital. Mr. Puozaa said many investors would be attracted to the Northern regions if with significant improvement in the quality of health care delivery in the area.

The MPs expressed disappointment that the hospital had only one operation theatre, no permanent emergency ward and the maternity ward lacked adequate beds. At the Septic Ward, both the males and the females were on admission in the same hall, a situation, which does not give any privacy to the patients.

The X-ray Department could deal with only chest related cases because there was no equipment for the other diseases that would require the use of an X-ray machine.

Dr Prosper Akambong, Medical Director of the Hospital told the Parliamentary delegation that due to the poor working conditions at the hospital, some doctors had refused to be posted there adding, "some of the doctors who accept posting to the hospital vacate their posts few days after they have reported".

He said, for instance, that some 20 doctors who were posted to the hospital last year, failed to report, noting that the situation was impacting negatively on healthcare delivery at the hospital. He mentioned inadequate accommodation, interrupted power supply, encroachment on the hospital's land, and inadequate beds as some of the problems the hospital was facing and called for urgent steps to address them.

Dr. Akambong said the poor state of the hospital posed a challenge to the training of students of the University for Development Studies (UDS) medical school.

The Medical Director expressed the hospital's gratitude to the MPs and said Tamale was a fast growing Metropolis, which needed a modern health facility to meet its health needs. The delegation later paid a courtesy call on the Northern Regional Minister, Alhaji Mustapha Ali Idris, who expressed appreciation to the MPs and urged them on to "push forward" the development agenda of the region