Government has honoured its promise to provide the basic facilities needed at the Burns Department of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, but that came a little too late, Dr. Kwabena Arthur Kennedy has stated. His criticism follows the presentation of equipment worth GHS45,000 to the Burns Department of the hospital to facilitate the treatment of victims of the recent Ashaiman gas cylinder explosion incident. The deputy Local Government Minister Elvis Afriyie Ankrah made the promise last week to equip the hospital after 18 people were burnt in a gas cylinder explosion in Ashaiman. Three of the six victims rushed to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital by authorities at the Tema General Hospital later died. On Monday, Greater Accra Regional Minister Nii Armah Ashittey presented the vitally needed equipment to authorities of the Korle Bu hospital on behalf of President John Mills. The equipments included monitors. Doctors at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital were grateful for the presentation but insist government must do more to support the needs of the Burns Department. “I am glad that they have made good their promise because these monitors are vitally needed equipment that we will use to treat our patients. But I must also point out that this is not all. This is one of the needs,” Dr Opoku Ware Ampomah told Joy News. The deputy Local Government Minister in a later interview with Joy News commiserated with the souls of the departed victims. He described the intervention by government as the first step in re-equipping and rehabilitating the major hospitals across the country. But Dr Arthur Kennedy a presidential candidate for the NPP in the 2008 election said the presentation by government to the Korle Bu Teaching is a little too late. He said “piece meal” approach that successive governments have adopted in equipping hospitals across the country is not good enough. But for the unfortunate incident which claimed the lives of three people, these equipment may not have been procured, he suspected. But the deputy Minister debunked that assertion, explaining the NPP government of which Arthur Kennedy is a member had eight years to solve the problems but could not. Out of crisis comes the necessity for urgent solution, he explained, stating government could not have looked on after the incident merely because it did not provide the equipments early on. Story by Nathan Gadugah/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana