The St. Theresa’s hospital at Nkoranza in the Bono East Region was set up in 1971 but is still grabbling with equipment which were installed at its establishment.
Equipment at the facility are not only old and outmoded but cannot function to achieve the desired healthcare delivery.
Our Bono Regional Correspondent, Larry Paa Kwesi Moses has assessed the situation at the hospital to ascertain the real hurdle authorities go through in the daily discharge of their duties.
History of the hospital
It took the combine efforts of the Catholic Church and the Nkoranza Traditional Council to set up the St. Theresa’s Hospital 51 years ago.
Today, the 134 capacity bed hospital has a total work force of 344 including three surgeons and a paediatrician.
The staff foul day and night to provide health care for the people in the midst of daunting challenges.
Scores of challenges
In 2021, the hospital recorded OPD attendance of 54,827, most of whom were diagnosed with malaria, anaemia and BP cases.
Speaking with the Administrator of the hospital, Rev. Father Daniel Bemini, he bemoaned the myriad of challenges confronting the facility.
“The equipment we are using are very old. One of them is the x-ray machine. It is an analogue machine which was purchased decades ago. We are calling on the Ministry of Health, Ghana Health Service (GHS), CHAG as well as all relevant authorities to come to our aid with an ultra modern x-ray machine to facilitate our service delivery.
He furthered that the deplorable nature of the road infrastructure leading to the hospital is also a major factor impeding their services.
“All our roads are in very deplorable states making it unconducive for an ambulance to ply on when emergencies occur. We are calling on government and philanthropists to help put our roads in good shares”
The staff are zealous and poised to work in achieving the set goals of the hospital but they are bogged down with obsolete and outworn equipment.
Operating theatre
Inside the operating theatre, surgeons make do with an old manual theatre bed that was installed some 51 years ago.
Let alone, there is limited space for surgeons to manoeuvre in doing their work.
The surgeon in charge, Dr. Della Dinku, and his assistants used five hours to perform operation on some of the victims who were injured in the Nkoranza crowd control incident due to that.
Dr. Dinku said surgical cases keep rising on a daily basis and he called for retooling of the theatre to achieve maximum results.
“This is a very outmoded theatre table. It is non electric. Its operation is manual. We have to use man power to move it around to be able to turn to the angles to suit the surgeon that is operating. We need modern tables that are automatic adjustable to which ever way you want it.
The staff, according Dr. Dinku “have been able to conduct over 153 operations as at 24th of May, 2022 under this unfavourable conditions so we are appealing to anybody that can be of help to us we will be glad to welcome it.”.
The X-Ray Dark Room
The situation in the X-ray dark room can be likened to a spot at garbage site.
There is nothing appreciative since the place is stocked with an obsolete X-ray machine that often produce poor X-ray images.
Francis Yanney, the X-ray technician, said the analogue X-ray machine is of no use now and need to be replaced with a digital one.
He complained that “sometimes when we expose the machine no image appears on the film so it has to be repeated and there is also a negative side effect as a result of radiation from the machine. I will be very glad if I get a digital x-ray machine to work with.”
Maternity Ward
Additionally, there was nothing good to write home about in the maternity ward either.
Apart from being congested, the maternity ward has only two delivery beds which is not enough to cope with the rising number of delivery cases.
Admission beds are also inadequate thereby compelling mothers and their new born babies to lie on the floor.
Source: Larry Paa Kwesi Moses|Onuaonline.com|Ghana
