Patients abscond without settling bills

One hundred and ten patients ran away from the Tema General Hospital without settling their bills, while 466 were declared paupers and had their bill of 8.6 million cedis waived, last year, Dr Charity Brako, Medical Superintendent in charge of the hospital said at the weekend.

The Medical Superintendent, who was speaking to GNA, said Ghanaians needed constant reminders through education about the fact that the hospital needed money to run and keep things moving, noting that most people wanted everything free and took health matters for granted.

Dr Brako said in order to draw the line between inability and unwillingness of patients to settle their bills, the Department of Social Welfare had attached a personnel to the hospital to conducts thorough investigation about defaulters and advise the Management on their status whether they qualified to be classified as paupers and have their bills waived.

She said 6,434 patients benefited from the exemption policy in 2002. They were made up of 2,793 antenatal cases; 2,904 between one and five years and 737 were senior citizens.

Dr Brako called for the intensification of education on sanitation to get the people to live in healthy environment to reduce the high incidence of malaria and other diseases that resulted from living in unhygienic conditions.

She said there was too much filth in the environment that bred mosquitoes to cause the malaria.

Unsanitary conditions needed to be brought under control, the Medical Superintendent said and stressed on de-silting of gutters, proper disposal of refuse and the weeding of bushy surroundings.

Dr Brako said malaria topped all the diseases that were reported at the hospital in 2002 and 2001 followed by hypertension, eye infection and pregnancy related disorders in that order.

In the case of hypertension, she attributed it to stress and unhealthy lifestyles and called for regular medical examination to find out one's health status. She, however, could not tell the causes of the eye problems.

In 2002, a total of 123,781 attendances were recorded at the Out-Patient Department (OPD) as compared 117,020 in 2001 while the antenatal clinic recorded 3,920 and 4,165 in 2001 and 2002, respectively.