Our Lady of Grace Hospital in Breman Asikuma in the Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa District, has appealed for support from benevolent individuals and organisations to expand its emergency unit to accommodate more patients and save more lives.
The hospital, now a referral centre for many facilities across the region, operates its emergency unit in an 80-year-old maternity block which can accommodate only four adults and three children at a time.
Consequently, the unit is mostly congested and overwhelmed, forcing patients needing emergency care to lie on the floor or sit in plastic chairs to receive treatment.
Madam Cynthia Sarfo Amponsah, the officer in charge of the Emergency Unit, told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview that the hospital received more than 728 emergency every month, making the unit not fit for purpose.
To make matters worse, the unit also lacked adequate equipment to aid the delivery of prompt and quality health care.
“We get overwhelmed by the numbers and sometimes we put mattresses on the floor for patients to receive treatment,” she said.
“There’s normally a lot of pressure on our limited equipment like the monitors because many patients need to be put on them, but we only have three of them.
“We are appealing to benevolent individuals, corporate entities and NGOs to help us get a new standard emergency unit befitting the hospital,” she said.
Dr Francis Bentil, the Medical Director of the facility, corroborating the situation, noted that the ‘no beds’ syndrome had been their bane.
He said the hospital was blessed with highly qualified personnel, including doctors nurses, specialists and paramedics but was handicapped by the lack of adequate resources.
“Somebody comes needing emergency care and there is no bed for the person; they sadly, must sit in the chair to be nurse. Our major challenge right now as a hospital is that we want the emergency unit expanded,” he appealed.
He said maybe patients must go to Cape Coast but sometimes they get there and could not find space, so an expansion of the facility would lead to enhanced healthcare delivery.
GNA