The Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) Mr. Offeng Gyimah has expressed need for the hospital to purge its tarnished image after the infamous stillborns gone missing scandal rocked the hospital nearly two months ago.
The hospital triggered a national discussion after a forty-year old woman Suwaiba Mumuni reported of the disappearance of her purported dead body delivered at the hospital. This ignited the anger of her community members at Aboabo, a Kumasi suburb, as they attacked the Obstetrician and Gynecology block of the hospital vandalizing property and beating up hospital staff.
It took the intervention of the Health Ministry and the police service to get the doctors who withdrew their services for security concerns, to return to work. The Chief Executive Officer, Professor Ohene Adjei, was asked by the Health Minister Sherry Ayittey, to take his accumulated leave while the doctor and midwife who were on duty on the night of the incident stepped to allow for investigations.
The Health Ministry is yet to compile its final conclusion of investigative reports solicited from the management of the hospital, the Nurses and Midwifery Council and the Medical and Dental Council.
Speaking in his first media interview since his appointment, the Acting CEO of the Hospital, Offeng Gyimah, expressed worry about the dwindling public confidence in the services of the only Tertiary Referral Facility of the northern sector of the country, blaming the situation on the extensive media attention given to Suwaiba and her missing baby, at the neglect of health officials who were assaulted.
Sharing these sentiments in an exclusive interview with Ultimate Radio�s Nana Oye Diabene, he questioned �Is it not unfortunate that everybody is condemning the hospital on the issue but no one is talking about the assault on our staff including some of our senior consultants, good doctors and midwives who have worked all their lives here?�
He added, �Though it is not going to correct what we did wrong, yet I thought that is the balanced way of reporting issues.�
Mr. Offeng Gyimah, who until his appointment worked as an administrator at the hospital for many years, told Nana Oye Diabene that a new management culture of involving the entire staff in observing and pointing out short comings of each other, was being inculcated in the staff at KATH.
�We are not interested in fishing them out for the sake of punishment, No! What we are doing is to encourage good practice and expose bad practices even from within. Now our professionals are bent on exposing the so called �bad nuts� from within,� he stated.
He was optimistic that these measures would help bring about some professionalism in the operations of the hospital and help root out unacceptable conducts in the hospital.
Mr. Offeng Gyimah strongly advocated that some amount of protection be accorded such critical national facilities like hospitals in the event of such controversies, considering the crucial services they offer to the larger populace.
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