No Bed Syndrome: Korle-Bu has never lacked beds - Dr. Segbefia

An Orthopaedic Surgeon, Dr Michael Segbefia, has disclosed that the issue of beds for patients at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital has never been a problem.

The revelation on Citi Tv’s ‘Point of view’, hosted by Bernard Avle, throws more cloud on the ‘No Bed Syndrome’ anthem that has been sung on media waves for the most part of the year.

According to him, he could state “for a fact that there has never been a time when the 1900 beds at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital have ever been full.”

The maternity ward has been one of the most plagued entities of the hospital and reports have circulated of new mothers lying on bare floors prior to and after delivery.

Dr Segbefia, who is also a member of OccupyGhana and a lecturer at the University of Ghana explained that “having a structure that works,” would be an appropriate solution to the problems routinely faced by health institutions.

However, “I think that’s what we lack badly,” he admitted.

On the show, he also revealed that “healthcare can never be free”, validating the poors’ fears of never being able to access good healthcare for lack of money.

“You have to pay the bill for them to keep running,” he stated.

He insinuated that the media frenzy had propelled politicians to take an interest in the appalling issue “because things like this will obviously get the politicians running,” he said, referring to Citi’s hefty reportage on the No Bed Syndrome that opened it all up.



Alluding to the recent issue of the 70-year old man who died because the hospital lacked the space to accommodate him, the Surgeon said that, a digitized bed system could have helped to avoid that situation entirely.

“If there was a bed management system, every bed must be digitized. So that when a patient is discharged from ward A, the bed manager must be able to know that a patient in the emergency room must be pushed into the ward to free the beds in the emergency room.”

A better system would serve as a bedrock for all the solutions about to be implemented to be very effective, “otherwise, you are wasting our time,” he said.

The pressure of commissioning incomplete projects, has done little to help the situation as most of the funds for the projects had been locked in concrete.