Bechem Gov’t Hospital relies on taxis to refer patients

• Posted on August 15, 2018
• by Ellsamwise King
• Comment

Authorities at the Bechem Government Hospital in the Brong Ahafo Region have to rely on taxis to transfer patients from the hospital to other facilities because of the absence of an ambulance.

Bechem Government Hospital, established decades ago, is a major referral facility for patients in the Tano South Municipality as well as communities from the Ashanti Region.

The facility also receives a lot of accident victims on the Sunyani-Kumasi Highway.

One major headache currently facing the hospital is the absence of an ambulance.

The old ambulance has broken down for years, and the hospital employs the services of taxi drivers to send patients to either the Brong Ahafo Regional Hospital in Sunyani or the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi.

The authorities at the hospital say the situation is putting pressure on them in their handling of patients.

Dr. Emmanuel Adjei-Darko, the Medical Superintendent at the Bechem Government Hospital in an interview lamented the stress they go through as a facility to transport patients.

“This is the situation we find ourselves; we are on a major highway which records major accidents.; and because we have no ambulance we have to transport patients in taxis, at times nurses have to accompany the patients as they have to hold infusion for these patients,” Dr. Adjei-Darko revealed.

Dr. Adjei-Darko said several appeals made to the Ghana Ambulance Service and the Regional Health Directorate for an ambulance is yet to yield any results.

He appealed to the government  and corporate bodies to support the hospital with an ambulance.

55 ‘functioning’ ambulances are even substandard – Health professional

A health professional recently called into question the quality of Ghana’s 55 functioning ambulances which serve the entire 29 million population.

He made the comment on the back of a report on the death of a pregnant woman and her baby due to the lack of oxygen in an ambulance.

A data report indicates that of the woefully inadequate 155 ambulancesin the country, only 55 are operationalacross the country as 100 have broken down.

The situation paints a gloomy picture of the country’s emergency health service response system, which can be blamed for some of the deaths recorded in the country.

Dr. Yakubu Akparibo, who is Ghana’s first and only Aerospace Medicine Specialist said the death of a patient in an ambulance due to the lack of oxygen indicates that the supposed functioning ambulances are substandard.

Source: CNR