Korle Bu ICU reopens
The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital was reopened to the public on Monday, after more than two years of inactivity.
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The unit was closed down for retooling to enhance healthcare delivery at the hospital.
A visit by the Daily Graphic to the unit to confirm its reopening revealed that a team of medical personnel was preparing to admit the first patient who had gone through a five-hour spine operation and required intensive care to facilitate his recovery.
Meanwhile, the consultant anaesthetist at the centre, Dr Chris Owoo, has said the 12-bed capacity unit will not be able to operate at its full capacity due to inadequate intensive care nurses.
He said ideally, the ICU’s capacity now required a maximum of 108 intensive care nurses but the unit had only 24 at the moment.
“Because it takes a very long time to train intensive care nurses, we are resorting to taking clinical nurses and giving them in-house training in intensive care in the interim and later sponsor them to upgrade to intensive care nurses,” he said.
Intensive care without compromise
Notwithstanding that, Dr Owoo said, the management of the centre would ensure that all patients who deserved intensive care were given it without compromise.
The current status of the ICU would ensure that the safety of patients who had gone through surgery was guaranteed, he said.
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That, he said, was because the unit had been retooled with very sophisticated healthcare machines that would enhance the recovery process of patients.
He said the ICU had taken delivery of enough consumables worth GH¢1 million to run the centre for the next six months.
According to him, arrangements had been made to ensure that consumables, which ran out of stock, would be replaced to ensure that there was no interruption in the operation of the ICU.
Dr Owoo said the ICU now had its own laboratory and a central monitoring system which made it easier and better to monitor and track the recovery of all patients.
He said the new life support monitors had enhanced life monitoring features which would ensure that patients were given the utmost attention they required for their recovery.
One-stop shop
Describing the ICU now as a one-stop shop for medical care for patients requiring intensive care, he said the re-tooling had made it possible for doctors and other health professionals who needed to attend to their patients at the unit to do so without having to move them out.
“Now most essential services, including laboratory tests, X-ray, among other services, could be done at the ICU,” he said.
Support
While acknowledging that the unit was receiving positive responses from corporate Ghana by way of contributions to keep it running, Dr Owoo appealed to them to contribute to the trust fund established by the hospital.
“The cost of intensive care is so huge that a patient alone cannot foot the bill. Therefore, we appeal to more philanthropist corporate institutions to emulate those helping the unit financially,” he said.
Writer’s email Doreen.andoh@graphic.com.gh