Tamale Health Directorate in Crisis after Director’s removal by Kandahar Boys

Three months after NPP vigilante group in Tamale, The Kandahar Boys, caused the Director General of Ghana Health Service to sanction the newly posted Northern Regional Health Director, Dr. Samuel Quarshie, conditions at the health facility are rapidly declining.

From the disconnection of water supply to offices of the directorate by the Ghana Water Company, to escalating administrative rows between authorities in four district hospitals, patients in the region are beginning to feel the direct impact of the leadership vacuum.

On March 20, Dr Samuel Quarshie reported to work but later in the night was forced to abandon his official residence to sleep at unknown location after he encountered the most tensed and shocked moments of his entire career.

As he was chairing a restricted Entity Tender Committee meeting at the conference hall around 2pm, about six bag carrying men, later identified as members of the Kandahar Boys, arrived at the directorate on motorbikes and came straight to the meeting ground.

The vigilante group verbally harassed Dr. Quarshie for nearly 30 minutes and later led him to his office to clear his table as they rejected desperate and passionate pleas from other members of the meeting including the regional state prosecutor.

The men were ordered to carry out a straightforward message to the director; to step down or face forceful removal.

The Kandahar Boys reportedly told the director they had received reports that “he was creating problems at the directorate and not allowing people to work freely”, and so had come to drive him out of office.

Without any robust security arrangement as recently witnessed when the men attacked the regional office of Ghana Highways Authority, Dr. Samuel Quarshie raised concerns over his personal safety and fled the region as ordered by the Kandahar Boys.

A month later in April, the Director General, who is yet to make a single move about the detailed report of the attack sent to his office, summoned the regional director and sanctioned him to proceed on indefinite leave, accusing him of deserting his post, and since then, health service in this region with the highest health indicators in the country, has crawled back into a standstill.

Starr News monitoring the development has uncovered that the absence of the regional director, who had already initiated moves to revolutionize the weak health front in the region, is having a disastrous implications on service delivery.

Since Dr. Quarshie was chased away from the region, renewed leadership brawls between health directors and medical officers at government health centers in Saboba, Bimbilla, Yendi, Gushegu and Karaga, have threatened the provision of basic healthcare in the areas.

The Karaga district is currently without a health director as the former director, transferred months ago over procurement breaches, refused to handover the his official bungalow and vehicle. He has has since placed the properties on lock and fled with the keys.

At the Bimbila government hospital, Dr. Samuel was mediating an intense impasse between the medical superintendent and municipal health director. The impasse was so severe that the Municipal Chief Executive of the area reported the incident himself to the directorate. Tensions are growing again between the two following the absence of Dr. Samuel.

And in Gushegu, two medical doctors who had locked horns over the medical superintendent position, has become a precarious situation affecting service delivery, and in Yendi, a medical director transferred to the hospital is yet to report.

Again, several administrative decisions that were sanctioned by Dr. Samuel Quarshie have been relegated with difficulty in implementation, including a sweeping direction that made it compulsory for hospital managers to prioritize payments to the Regional Medical Store.

Apart from high indebtedness to utility providers which has at least compelled the Water Company Limited to cut supply, staff indiscipline towards work, desperate power struggle at top management level, there is a total breakdown of workflow, down from the directorate to the major health centers across the impoverished region, and poor patients are suffering the cascading impacts.