Ghana's premier health facility will soon impose a special levy on patients in a desperate bid to raise funds to save the Intensive Care Unit from collapse.

The one cedi levy to be charged by the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital will go into a pool that will be used to finance operations and pay the ICU's ballooning debts.

Board Chairman of the hospital, Anthony Mawuli Sallam, explains the move is also to offset piled up debts owed by some patients at the unit.

He said retrieving the over GH¢500,000 debt owed by these patients is proving to be a herculean task because most of them are too poor to do so.

"The Intensive Care Unit, as you know is intensive. It costs GH¢1,000 per day for a patient so even the rich people cannot pay GH¢1,000 a day", he observed.

The hospital will also set up a special fund into which benevolent people and corporations can donate.

Prof. Sallam maintains without the new policy the unit will cease to exist.