The delegation touring one of the centres
High electricity bill is one of the major problems facing the health institution, the Acting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH), Dr Felix Anyah, has stated.
He said the teaching hospital currently pays as much as GH¢1.2m a month for electricity just for its operational facilities, excluding residential accommodation.
“We have a back up for power but the challenge is the bills and consumption. We normally get GH¢1.2m as electricity bill for Korle-Bu a month,” he said.
Dr Anyah revealed that the high electricity bills being generated by the hospital were making it difficult for the health facility to break even considering the gross monthly income generated.
“GH¢1.2m is not sustainable, looking at the gross monthly income, then it means the hospital is not breaking even,” he noted.
He, however, stated that with a strategic policy framework spelling out standards of operation in the hospital, the facility can surmount the challenges facing it.
“As a team, we should be able to remodel and reposition Korle-Bu to be the centre of excellence and hub of medical tourism in Africa,” he said.
Dr Anyah made this known during a short working visit by the Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, to the health facility to seek first hand information and look at how hospital management can engage and improve health facilities in the country.
“It is to familiarise but also to motivate doctors and staff and to assure them that the ministry has not forgotten about them,” he disclosed.
The delegation which included the Deputy Minister of Health, Kingsley Aboagye Gyedu, and some directors of the Ministry of Health engaged staff of the child health department, burns and plastic surgery centre, maternal health department, accident emergency and cardiothoracic centre of the hospital.
Speaking with the media after the tour of the facilities, Mr Agyeman-Manu expressed some level of satisfaction on the part of the health personnel but observed there were some other issues that could be addressed to make their work more effective.
“Maintenance and expansion at the maternity block, we have machines brought in that are not being used till now because there was no space to install the equipment which are all needed to treat patients in intensive care. We also realised the low human resource in the maternity block,” he indicated.
Touching on the electricity issue, the sector minister stated, “We need to inform the minister in-charge to help us do some investigations into how the bills come up so it is not like Legon that had one sub-station not knowing that property developer around Legon were all using the electricity and Legon was paying the bill some as high as GH¢30m a month.”
He also urged the management of the hospital to see how best they can work together to make new structures like the accident emergency and MRI unit functional again.
“We do have hope that with those interventions, Korle-Bu can break even,” he said.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri