Confusion at KATH over re-engagement of retired CEO by hospital’s Board

Tension is building-up in the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi following re-engagement of Dr. Oheneba Owusu-Danso the immediate past Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the referral health facility by the hospital’s governing Board.

Dr. Oheneba Owusu-Danso was in 2017 appointed by President Nana Akufo Addo as acting Chief Executive Officer of the Teaching Hospital and was subsequently confirmed the Chief executives officer for the facility with four years mandates of managing day to day affairs of Ghana’s second premier health center.

After serving the facility for 4year term which fell on his retirement age, the government again gave him two more years’ contract extension which ended in 2022.

His retirement led to the government appointing Prof. Dr. Dr. Ochere Addai Mensah former Dean of Student of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) to act as Chief executive of the hospital.

Without the knowledge or recommendation of the new CEO of the hospital Prof. Addai Mensah the board of the hospital Chair by Nana Effah Apenteng, Omanhene of Bompata Traditional Council with support of other member of the board allegedly have re engage the services of the retired plastic surgeon who service is not lacked in the hospital after taking his retirement benefits.

This unilateral decision taken by the board is creating tension in the hospital as some Senior Doctors in the facility have threatened to resist any attempt by the Hospital board to directory involving themselves in recruitment of the hospital’s staff.

A practice they say is new to the administrative structures of the hospitals which also seeks to undermine the authority of the hospitals administrative management.

However, responding to the claims by the aggrieve staff of the hospital, the immediate past Chief executive of the Hospital Dr. Oheneba Owusu Danso explained to EIB’s News Ashanti regional Correspondent Isaac Justice Bediako that ”My re-engagement back into the hospital is a normal health practice in the facility. My predecessor Dr. Joseph Akpaloo is still working at KATH after his contract as CEO of the hospital expired so what is the big deal here ? ’’ .

Added’’ As a consultant, if your services are required when you retire from the facility, management gives you a contract for one or two years to work with the facility subject to renewal. So that is what the Board has done in my case. The recommendation was sent by the board to the ministry of health and was forwarded to the Presidency and approval was given so why are people trying to make a case out of nothing’’.

However, Dr. Oheneba failed to answer if it’s the normal practice in the facility for the board to write recommendation letters for retired staff re-engagement without the hospital CEO’s and other units head heads knowledge.

“ There is nothing the board has done wrong, I don’t know why the new cEO is trying to make the whole thing a bad decision. This is age old practice at KATH’’ he replied.

meanwhile, a group of Doctors who feels the board is on a mission to sabotage the Chief executive of the hospital are putting their heads together to petition President Nana Akuffo Addo to stop the re-engagement of Dr. Oheneba Owusu Danso back into KATH.