Three Die From Power Outage

As uncertainties continue to hang over the operations of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH), information gathered by The Chronicle indicates that many more patients continue to lose their lives. Fresh reports available to the paper indicate that two patients who were on the oxygen support machine, and another one at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), lost their lives at Thursday dawn as a result of lack of power supply. A reliable source told the paper the three patients lost their lives around 2:00 am when power went off at a time medical staff were seriously attending to them at the Intensive Care Unit. Information gathered further, revealed that about four patients were on the oxygen support machine when the power went off, resulting in the death of two, whilst the other two were said to be in critical condition. The two reportedly died while in the oxygen machine after medical staff were said to have done everything possible to save their lives but to no avail, as there was shortage of oxygen supply due to lack of power to run some of the equipment at the hospital. The Komfo Anokye teaching Hospital has for the past four days been in serious distress with respect to health delivery, after junior doctors embarked on a strike action to protest what they described as the poor state of affairs at the facility, and the seemingly apathetic attitude of the management towards the situation. Officials at the hospital have been tight-lipped about the death of the three, including other causalities since Tuesday when the junior doctors decided to embark on the strike action. The doctors, at the time of filing this report, were gearing up for meeting s with Minster of Health, Alban Sumana Bagbin, have been protesting against obsolete equipment at the Accident & Emergency Care Centre, and the irregular supply of water and energy to the hospital, which they said, were hampering the work of staff of the hospital. The doctors accused the management and board of the hospital of having done little to address the anomalies despite several petitions, culminating in their decision to embark on the sit down strike to compel management to urgently act on the matter. Bad blood has since developed between the junior doctors on one hand, and the board and management on the other, after the authorities were alleged to have accused the doctors of being politically-motivated. Meanwhile, the Minister of Health has been meeting other stakeholders, including the board and management, to find solutions to the problems confronting the hospital. Mr. Bagbin has engaged authorities of the hospitals in a closed door meeting at the Regional Coordinating Council, and was expected to meet with the junior doctors afterwards.