Health Minister pays unannounced visit to some medical facilities in Accra

The Minster for Health, Mr. Alex Segbefia, has paid an unannounced visit to two medical facilities—Mamprobi Polyclinic and the Princess Marie Louise Hospital (also known as the Children’s Hospital) — within the Accra Metropolis.

The purpose of the unannounced visit was for the Minister to familiarize himself with activities at the hospitals as opposed to periodic reports sent to him.

Receiving the Minister, the administrator of Mamprobi Polyclinic, Madam Sofia Oware, disclosed that the theatre under construction in the hospital was nearing completion and that it would require the needed support to equip it.

Madam Oware also appealed to the Minister for support to build a ward as a ‘lie in’ for the theatre because a patient might need to be detained for about 3 to 4 days after surgery.

In addition, she said, the clinic needed delivery beds, lamps for suturing, stabilizers and BP apparatus, among others.

For his part, the Deputy Medical Superintendent of the Polyclinic, Dr Bernard Enim, informed the Minister about challenges in the referral system and called on the Ghana Health Service to take another look at it.

 “The system demands that you place a call to the referral point before you move the patient from your facility. 

However, when you place the call, the referral point says there’s no bed, and sometimes patients needing critical care stay here for hours because of the situation”, Dr Enin explained.

 He said the current system endangered the health and life of the patients and also placed a lot of stress on the staff because primary level facilities such as theirs lacked the equipment and expertise to manage some of the cases.

The Minister commended the staff and management of the Mamprobi Polyclinic for doing their best under trying circumstances, adding that the clinic had turned out to be a good model in terms of how it was run, and encouraged them to keep the standard.

 Mr. Segbefia pledged to engage the Ghana Health Service to find the best ways of dealing with existing challenges.

At the Princess Marie Louise Hospital, Mr. Segbefia was warmly received by management of the hospital and the Regional Director of the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Linda Vanotoo.

Dr. Eric Sifah, Medical Superintendent of the hospital, explained that the hospital had a plant which had pipes directly connected to the emergency room and the theatre and that, ideally, other wards were supposed to have same channels, but did not have, the absence of which created a big challenge.
 
Dr. Maame Yaa Nyarko, Head of Clinical Services, who conducted the tour, introduced the Minister to the Nutritional Rehabilitation Center where malnourished children are placed into programs to restore them to normalcy.
 
Elaborating further on the challenges facing the department, Dr. Nyarko said some of the parents of the children were so needy that the hospital’s social welfare had to help them to start up small businesses or link them to some organizations to relieve them of the financial burden.
 
According to her, most of the malnutrition cases were because parents did not have money to even feed their children; which meant that malnutrition could not be addressed holistically without finding sustainable solution to the problem.
 
The Minister was also taken to the yet-to-be-opened Neonatal Intensive Care Unit which, according to Dr. Nyarko, was not yet functional because of a shortfall in medical personnel.
 
“The Neonatal Unit alone needs four medical officers constantly manning it. At present, having a 24 hour cover for the rest of the hospital has become a big challenge” she bemoaned.
 
She commended the Minister for the unannounced visit and expressed the hope that pertinent decisions would be taken to help improve health care delivery at the hospital.
 
Mr. Segbefia said the visit was an eye opener for him and was quite pleased with the synergy that existed between patients and medical officers, and even more to learn that Mamprobi Polyclinic had not recorded any maternal death for over 2 years.
 
He said the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) had targets that were more stringent in dealing with maternal care and maternal, and infant mortality and, therefore, it was crucial that these targets be dealt with at the primary health care level.

 
SOURCE: ISD