KATH appeals for more equipment to aid emergency care

Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH), the nation’s second largest referral facility, has appealed for the supply of more equipment to enhance emergency care.

Dr. Oheneba Owusu-Danso, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), said its accident and emergency centre, needed urgent retooling.

The centre had over the last eight years not received any new medical equipment.

He made the appeal at a meeting with members of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health, in Kumasi.

The facility has been handling emergency referral cases and he said it was important to make sure that it was well-equipped to provide world-class service.

The Committee, led by Dr. Kwabena Twum-Nuamah, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Berekum East, is on a three-day working visit to the Ashanti Region to meet and interact with the heads of the various health institutions.

This is to help them to have a better understanding of the difficulties they daily faced and the way forward.

Dr. Owusu-Danso also expressed concern about congestion at the wards of the hospital, a situation that had resulted in patients often being kept for days at the emergency centre.

He said patients, requiring emergency care normally should spend between 24 and 48 hours to get their condition stabilized and then be transferred to the ward for further treatment.

Dr. Twum-Nuamah applauded the hospital workers for the good job they were doing to bring healing to the sick.

He gave the assurance that the Committee would do everything it could to assist address its most pressing needs to raise the quality of care.