The award winners in a group photograph with hospital management
The management of Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) has assured patients who visit the health facility for medical attention of improved services and value for their money.
Dr Gilbert Buckle, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of KBTH, speaking with the media on the sidelines of 2016 awards ceremony for hospital staff, said it is the dream of the hospital to ensure that patient care is significantly improved.
“We do not want a process when patients come in and are not able to get value for money, the cost of care is going up and it is incumbent on Korle-Bu to ensure that we give you value for money for the services we provide,” he said.
Dr Buckle stated that the hospital in order to ensure that patients get value for their money had discussed some initiatives like quality improvement programmes, measures to address issue of shortages and education of patients on what to do and where to pay for their services, to be implemented in 2017.
“We are working with banks to ensure less manual transactions to limit people being deceived to pay money. We are enhancing our costing mechanism to make sure we are not transferring inefficiencies to the patients,” he added.
Dr Buckle further mentioned that the hospital would also invest in capacity building for its accounting and finance staff, decentralise its procurement process and develop a hospital inventory to get rid of middlemen to reduce the cost of excesses.
Touching on the past year’s performance of the hospital, Dr Buckle pointed out that the staff of the health institutions had achieved a level of cohesion and common sense of purpose of ensuring the patient experience the best of service.
He said, “Progress was made in some areas, while challenges also drew us back in 2016 we had significant challenges within the hospital itself but thanked the staff for giving out their best in those circumstances.”
Awards
The hospital awarded workers and departments for their outstanding contributions towards improving the healthcare of patients and the institution for the year 2016.
Ninety-two staff were picked as best workers from their various departments, out of which 18 emerged overall winners.
Two departments – Obstetrics & Gynaecology and the Medical Directorate – emerged as Best Sub-BMC and the Best Directorate respectively for the year 2016.
Oksana Corquaye from the Korle-Bu Polyclinic, speaking on behalf of the awardees, expressed their gratitude for the recognition and pledged their continuous support to the progress of the hospital.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri