Medical Director of Ridge Hospital, Dr Thomas Anaba, has said that understaffing of the hospital has hampered its effort in attending to emergency situations.
He said the hospital is not able to attend to some of the emergency cases referred to it because of the absence of adequate personnel.
Government has placed embargo on recruitment of health professionals because of IMF conditionalities, with most health facilities crying for more staff.
Fresh medicals as well as newly-qualified nurses and midwives are yet to be posted because clearance from the Finance Ministry has not been issued.
Dr Anaba was reacting to accusations of maltreatment levelled against the hospital by Mardey, a Good Samaritan who rushed an injured woman to the hospital on March 6.
Mardey called into JOY FM’s morning show on March 7 to recount the mistreatment meted out to her by some nurses of the Ridge Hospital when she took an injured woman there for treatment.
According to her, she saw the injured lady – a victim of a hit-and-run, on the Farrar Avenue at Adabraka and rushed to the Adabraka Police Station to report the accident.
With the help of a police officer, she picked the injured lady into her vehicle and drove to the Ridge Hospital, but said the nurses on the night shift refused to attend to the injured lady who was then bleeding in the head.
She also said the nurses engaged in a fierce argument with her and the police officer who accompanied her for 45 minutes when they could have spent the same time to attend to the lady.
Dr Anaba rejected her claims, saying one of the nurses on the night shift attended to the injured lady.
He said the nurse conducted a triaging test – a medical process for sorting injured people into groups based on their medical needs.
According to him, the nurse realised that the lady’s situation was not urgent; she then left to attend to a patient who was badly bleeding out of a dog bite.
Dr Anaba lauded Mardey for helping the injured lady, but said she could have contacted the management of the hospital rather than making the issue public.
“We are not belittling her effort in bringing the patient. But I think this issue to me didn’t need to explode the way [it] is going,” he said.
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