The Pediatric and Child Health Department of the Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH) have been compelled to pair preterm babies into single incubators due to the lack of incubators at the facility.
The Pediatric and Child Health Unit of the Tamale Teaching Hospital currently has 15 functional incubators that cater for about 25 preterm babies on admission at the facility.
The TTH serves as a referral facility for the five regions of the north.
A visit to the Pediatric and Child Health department of the hospital by DGN Online revealed that the Kangaroo mother care unit has only 7 beds serving mothers which left some mothers who do not have access to beds sitting on chairs to take care of their preterm babies.
The Head of the Pediatric and Child Health Department of the Tamale Teaching Hospital, Dr. Alhassan Abdul Mumuni, told DGN Online that the inadequate incubators at the unit affect quality health care delivery.
“Today we are not at our peak so we have two babies in most of the incubators but when we are at our peak we can get three sometimes four babies in one incubator and these are not babies born from the same mother and they are not supposed to be in the same incubator because they might have a different illness and one can transfer it to the other so if you keep them in one incubator the risk of infection is very high and infection is one of the lead complications that can lead to the death of a preterm baby.”
According to him, the Pediatric and Child Health Unit does not have enough oxygen supply and that the unit is expanding to improve in access to health care and for that matter, the numbers are increasing which requires double of the supply they currently receive.
Dr. Mumuni indicated that the unit lacks space compared to the admission they receive and appealed for expansion of the unit.
“A lot of babies will be waiting for their turn so if the baby goes through with the Kangaroo mother care they grow faster, feed faster and breath better and so we can discharge them early from the hospital to create more space for other babies and there is less expenditure on the hospital when you discharge the babies earlier for both hospital and family.”
The Head of Pediatric and Child Health Department of the Tamale Teaching Hospital lamented the lack of accommodation space for parents who are on admission to take care of their babies.
“Because we don’t have space for parents they end up sleeping around which is a big problem because when daybreak they have not rested enough to which can demoralize mothers and can make it difficult for them to fully participate in Kangaroo mother care of their babies.”
He appealed to the government, philanthropists, institutions, individuals to come to the aid of the Pediatric and Child Health Department of the Tamale Teaching Hospital to enable them to provide quality health care to preterm babies and parents.
FROM Eric Kombat, Tamale