Staff of Ideal Financial Holdings presenting the cheque to Korle Bu
Ideal Financial Holdings, a leading financial conglomerate, has presented a cheque of over GH¢20,000 to the Accident Centre of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital to clear the bills of five patients who have been treated and discharged but cannot leave the hospital because they couldn’t pay their bills.
The patients, some of whom have been discharged as far back as August 2015, expressed their joy when they heard they can now go home and thank Ideal Financial Holdings for the kind support.
Group Chief Executive Officer of Ideal Financial Holdings, Dr. Nii Kotei Dzani, said caring for the needy is part of our corporate culture of the financial conglomerate.
“One of our values is caring and each and every day we look for means to care for people who need such care. I am alarmed at how much individuals owe hospitals in this country,” he said.
Dr. Dzani added that patients who have been treated and discharged but cannot go home have become economic burdens on the hospital and so his company is looking at other ways to collaborate with Korle Bu so that these issues do not recur.
“We appreciate how difficult it is to operate a hospital because you have to acquire equipment, drugs and input regularly. We want to know what you need and see how best we can help, not just as Ideal Financial Holdings, but to draw the general public’s attention and lead a campaign to clear hospitals of people who have been treated and discharged but cannot be let go because they are owing,” he added.
Chief Executive Officer of Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Dr. Gilbert Buckle, said he appreciates the fact that Ideal Financial Holdings wants to make the issue of patients who cannot pay their bills a national campaign since it will draw much-needed attention to it.
“Your coming here is timely and a beacon of hope where a lot of us are concerned that nobody cares anymore or you have to be affected by it to have a responsibility. I want to thank you as a person and a corporate body who have gone beyond the bottom line.
“Anyone of us is at the same risk of coming into the hospital and the hospital must be able to receive you, care for you, without even knowing you. We do not compromise due to the cost of input, quality of medicine and equipment and we will do what we have to do for everybody and anybody who comes in.
In lauding Ideal Financial Holdings move to support these five patients, Dr. Buckle urged other corporate bodies to nurture the act of swiftly responding and supporting social causes.
“It costs us more keeping these patients than letting them go so now the practice is: for 24 to 48hours when we establish that this individual cannot pay, we discharge them and let social welfare do due diligence and hope and pray that the individual will be honest and come back and pay,” Dr. Buckle added.
He added that the hospital is about establishing a trust fund, to be administered as a separate public entity, to attract donations and bequeaths to support such endeavours. Already Korle Bu has a Critical Care Fund which supports those who come into intensive care who are comatose and on respiratory equipment and without that they will not survive.
“We do know and believe that there are good people out there who will support us in what we want to do. Due to issues of patient confidentiality, we cannot expose what happens here out there. It infringes on people’s rights to privacy so the best we hope for is when people request to see what is happening and then proceed to support,” he concluded.
