Tamale Hospital staff stealing hospital consumables - Dr. Sagoe

Dr. Ken Sagoe, the Chief Executive Officer of the Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH), has condemned the increasing rate at which staff of the hospital has been looting properties of the institution, especially consumables resulting in huge loss to the facility.

He complained that because of the weak security system in the hospital, some negative characters had cultivated a negative attitude of re-selling drugs and other consumables back to suppliers. He warned that steps were being taken to bring the perpetrators to book.

Dr. Sagoe, who was speaking on Wednesday in Tamale during the 2012 annual performance review, indicated that gloves, gauz and detergents were the most stolen items from the facility, adding that some of the suppliers do come back to them to reveal the syndicate.

“Some private clinics even have gloves and gauz with TTH inscription on them…we are yet to quantify the cost of the stealing syndicate”, he said.

Asked what the hospital was doing about the phenomenon, he indicated that the nefarious activity was being carried out by many staff including some essential staff, making it difficult to curtail it but noted plans were underway to stop the practice.

The CEO also expressed worry about the decreasing financial assistance to the hospital from the Government and requested for urgent support to augment the rising cost of the hospital in retaining critical staff, who were badly needed, to promote the excellent agenda of the facility.

Dr. Sagoe, who also announced his retirement from the end of the year, noted that the hospital spent GHc1.2 million last year to retain critical staff while GHc1.550 million was spent between 2010 and 2012 in accommodation for staff.

He said the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) was indebted to the hospital to the sum of GHc2.2 million and delay in payment was having negative impact in the operations of the hospital and appealed to the Ministry of Health to assist the hospital overcome its difficulties.

“Regular, uninterrupted and stable electricity supply continue to elude us and the toll on our generators by way of wear and tear and fuel cost is very high. The significant fluctuation in power and the ‘dumso’ ‘dumso’ has also damaged some of our equipment”, he said.

Alhaji Alhassan Issahaku, Northern Regional Coordinating Director commended the hospital for its great impetus in promoting quality healthcare delivery and encouraged them to continue pursuing positive initiatives that would ensure good health to the citizenry.