Former President Mahama, during to inspection of expansion phase
Former President John Mahama in his last State of the Nation Address in Parliament said his government’s investment in what he described as the ‘Bolgatanga Regional Hospital’ has helped to improve on access to quality healthcare for the people of the region, but DAILY GUIDE‘s visit to the hospital revealed a contrary picture from what the former president painted.
After series of calls from the public, especially relatives of patients to expose the appalling situation at the hospital, DAILY GUIDE and other media houses decided to visit the hospital to ascertain the true state of affairs.
Though the Bolgatanga Regional Hospital saw some expansion works under the Mahama-led regime, the expansion has not yet brought an improvement in access to quality healthcare in the region as the former president claimed in his State of the Nation Address.
At the time of filing this report, there was no functional source of water for patients to use at the hospital, and so their relatives had to carry water from their homes to enable them to cater for their patients. Patients who were also referred from their district health facility had to live without water for days till their family members got water from outside the hospital to clean them up. The same applies to drinking water.
The hospital, according to a junior staff, depends on tanker services for official use, which the patients do not have access to.
A relative of a patient said in an interview that the lack of water at the hospital was really making live unbearable for patients.
“I am the only one taking care of my mother here; there is no water here and my mother’s condition demands that I have to be around all the time to aide her in whatever she does. Sometimes I have to beg visitors to get us water, because if I go far from her, she wouldn’t be able to do anything for herself,” Rejoyce Atia narrated.
The hospital has no functioning X-Ray machine and has been so for months, and yet there seems not to be plans to get the faulty one repaired or to get a new one fixed for the hospital as soon as possible.
Patients have either been asked to go to the Bongo District facility or Navrongo War Memorial Hospital for X-Ray before their treatment at the Bolgatanga Hospital could commence. Unfortunately, the Bolgatanga Hospital cannot boast of an effective ambulance service.
Patients say the NHIS does not seem to work at the ‘Bolgatanga Regional Hospital’ and have had to pay for every service rendered to them at the hospital.
The hospital officials are tight-lipped about the situation and would not say anything about it when DAILY GUIDE contacted them.
From Ebo Bruce-Quansah, Bolgatanga