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The management of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital have responded to media reports on the facility’s service canteen alleged to have been inflating prices of food items.

A statement issued by the hospital management and copied to the Ghana News Agency on Wednesday said the operations of the canteen had been a major concern to the hospital management as it continued to become a drain on its finances.

The statement, which sought to clarify the “misleading” reports in sections of the media about the canteen, said: “As at the end of 2016, the accounts of the canteen showed a loss of more than Gh¢130,000 which excludes the Gh¢443,817.60 owed food suppliers and the Gh¢221,008.71 for utilities (that is electricity, water and rent),” the statement said.

On the reports of inflated prices of fruits allegedly supplied to the canteen, the statement said an award letter was issued in May 2016 for the supply of the fruits but errors were detected later in figures quoted in the letter, which led to the subsequent suspension of the contract.

According to the statement, two different committees that included external procurement consultants confirmed that the figures contained errors adding; “the fruits were never supplied to the canteen”.

The statement said service canteen management rather purchased fruits in the open market and reiterated that the proposed supplier had never supplied fruits to the hospital or the service canteen.

“As part of measures to ensure uninterrupted healthcare delivery, the hospital provides food for its house officers, who are required to be on 24-hour on call duty. The hospital feeds officers once a day and over the years, the service canteen has been providing this service to them,” it said.

The statement said due to the losses the canteen was incurring, the hospital management initiated steps to reorganise the canteen’s operations, which asked the officers to propose a restaurant within Korle-Bu for their meals.

According to the statement, they selected Med Dinner, a restaurant close to the house officer’s residence.

The hospital management signed an agreement with Med Dinner to that effect to provide meals for the house officers once day, the statement said, adding; “the statement that hospital is feeding its house officers six times a day is thus untrue”.

In a response to the transfer of staff of the catering department, the statement said the hospital undertook regular reshuffling of its staff.

“Early this year, over 500 workers from the accounts, security and other departments were reshuffled in a bid to enhance patient care,” it said, adding that the measures were routine and not intended to victimize any member of the hospital.