The Management of the Princess Marie Louise Children’s Hospital in Accra has bemoaned the structural defects and inadequate staff of the medical facility.
Parts of the building that serve as wards have developed cracks with exposed iron rods.
The Medical Superintendent of the Children’s Hospital, Dr. Maame Yaa Nyarko listed electrical faults, weak buildings, worn-out equipment and inadequate staff as the main challenges affecting quality health service provided to patients.
“The building that houses most of our wards, administrative floor and the consulting rooms has a lot of cracks and rusty iron rods. In addition, that building has a lot of electrical problems that requires that the whole building has to be rewired. We also have plumbing issues in that building. Initially, we tried to fix it but we realized that because of the structural defects it will not be a good decision to do that,” she said.
She added that “even though we have received a lot of Medical Officers, almost all of them are females in their reproductive age; they are having their babies and going on maternity leave and that gives us staff gaps. Aside the structural deficit, we have overcrowding in the emergency room. The number of clients is more than what the facility can accommodate. We have a lot of equipment that are old, and we need to get rid of them and some are beyond repairs.”
The Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman Manu assured that a structural integrity test will be conducted immediately to inform the next line of action.
In a reassuring tone, he admitted that “The facility is quite old and what we came to see after reports were made to the Ministry is not something anybody will like to see. When we went round the building, the structure of this building needs a lot of work to be done on it. So quickly, we are going to ask the consultant, Julius, to look at what we call structural integrity test, and they will advise us on what we are supposed to do.”
He added that if “there is something they can do to repair and maintain it in good shape, then it’s fine. If they recommend that we pull down then we may have to go look for money to begin to do that but we want them to come and see and send us a report. On the issue of inadequate staff, we will address that”.
