Patients visiting the Ga West Municipal Hospital at Amasaman, a suburb of Accra, are allegedly being charged GH¢0.30 fee by the management for using the hospital’s toilet facility.
DAILY GUIDE’s visit to the hospital after several complaints from patients and members of the public who attended the facility revealed that the fee was being charged to enable the hospital to purchase water and to cater for the welfare of some of its staff.
A certain Akos, a caretaker of the toilet was seen collecting money from a number of patients who wanted to use the toilet when DAILY GUIDE visited the facility yesterday.
The paper discovered that water had been in short supply to the hospital for a long and that had compelled the facility to resort to purchasing through its own funding since government had allegedly failed to supply them with water.
Most out-patients like pregnant women and nursing mothers are compelled to leave the waiting rooms which are for their conditions a bit far from the toilet facility in order to ease themselves.
Emmanuel Tetegu, a labourer at the hospital in an interview with DAILY GUIDE indicated that the development had been going on for about two years now.
He noted that the toilet facility was built by the Welfare Department of the Ga West Municipal Hospital, Amasaman, to enable it to raise money to cater for the welfare of its members.
According to him, some of the proceeds generated from the fee were used as loans for staff and to sponsor funerals and other emergencies that “any of us may encounter in the course of our working here.”
Mr Tetegu alleged that the Department came up with the decision “because the government was doing little to address the sufferings of the workers here.”
He further alleged that other government hospitals within the Greater Accra Region like the Achimota and Nsawam hospitals were doing same, adding that “even at Achimota hospital the case is worst as compare to this hospital because “there, you are made to pay urine fee.
“My brother, we government workers are suffering in this country,” he lamented, adding that “if we don’t do this and there is a problem, government wouldn’t come to our rescue but the welfare would do and I think charging toilet fee to raise money is not anything bad.”
Some of the patients who spoke to DAILY GUIDE in an interview expressed dissatisfaction over the issue, calling for an end to the practice.
“Sometimes you are worried when you want to visit the toilet because it’s far from most of the waiting rooms and normally when you go to ease yourself you may come back to realise that people who were next to you in the room are gone or receiving medical attention and others have come to replace you because of the long time you took to visit the toilet,” a pregnant woman who attends the hospital regularly for medical check-ups told DAILY GUIDE.
However, the in-patients are allowed to use the toilet facilities within their various wards.
All attempts to get the administrator of the hospital, one Ms. Adelaide to comment on the situation proved futile.
