Prof. Akosa chides Korle Bu health professionals
A former Director-General of the Ghana Health Services, Professor Agyeman-Badu Akosa, says the practice where medical professionals at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) use their official working time to pursue their private interests is adversely affecting the premier hospital.
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He claimed that doctors, nurses and pharmacists who were employed full-time work only a few hours at the hospital and spent the rest of the official working time at their private clinics, laboratories and pharmacies.
Professor Akosa also alleged that those medical professionals directed patients to their private facilities, thus reducing the revenue the hospital needed to improve healthcare delivery.
At the launch of a book titled “Taming The Monster—Managing Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital,” Prof. Akosa said, “This practice is almost like hacking the system both ways as one gets full-time salary as a regular employee of the Ministry of Health and directs patients to your private facilities”.
Book
The book, authored by Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, a former Chief Executive Officer of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital from 2002 to 2007, outlines his achievements, challenges and how he, together with other management members, helped to uplift the image of the premier facility.
It also highlights the various development processes and stages the hospital underwent prior to becoming a premier facility under the leadership of Prof. Frimpong-Boateng.
Middlemen
Prof. Akosa, who is a professor of pathology at the Medical School of the University of Ghana, Legon, further alleged that there was a group of people at the teaching hospital who, though had retired, continued to wear “white gowns” and had become middlemen at the facility.
“These people would pick patients’ folders almost as if they are ushering them through various processes but they end up duping patients big time,“ he said, adding that “they do that in the mortuary, theatres and wards and because they know everybody, they help patients to jump queues but everything they do, the patients pay for”.
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According to him, the day the premier hospital would “get things right, the health system in Ghana will get it right”.
Prof. Akosa commended Prof. Frimpong–Boateng for authoring the book, and expressed optimism that the initiative would set “the platform for future CEOs to tame KBTH”.
‘Book is a must-read’
The Director of Newspapers of the Graphic Communications Group Limited, Mr Yaw Boadu-Ayeboafoh, who described the book as a must-read, expressed hapiness that it gave some history of Korle Bu.
He said in spite of the successes chalked up by the renowned heart surgeon, there was not much documented proof of his achievements and, therefore, commended his efforts to document the events.
A former Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Prof. Stephen Adei, said it would be difficult to build a nation where about 70 per cent of people who called themselves honourable were totally dishonourable, saying, “These are people we must hold accountable.”
Prof. Frimpong-Boateng, who took the audience through the contents of the book, said through the support of management and staff of the hospital, he was able to use the internally generated resources to raise the image of the facility.