Chief Executive of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Prof. Otchere Addae Mensah is appealing to philanthropists and corporate bodies to assist in paying up the debt of patients detained at the hospital. 

According to him, the hospital has exceeded its capacity of 1,200 patients to more than 2,500 patients which has forced management to convert the hospital's reception into wards for patients.

Speaking to JoyNews, Prof Mensah said "We receive referrals from 12 out of the 16 regions so naturally at every point in time there are patients who have been discharged but many of them or some of them are unable to go because they haven’t paid their bills.

"Some of them have stayed in the hospital for a month, three weeks, two weeks. There have been instances where people have stayed in the hospital and contracted another disease, so we had to readmit them,” he said. 

Professor Addae explained that the hospital receives over 800 patients daily and patients at the emergency unit cannot be sent to the wards for treatment as beds are occupied by discharged patients owing medical bills.

“On your right is the orange ward, it is meant for 12, today January 9, the number of patients in the ward is 41. The congestion is partly because after looking after them at the emergency unit, we have to take them back to the wards but in the wards, we have patients who have been discharged but haven’t left because they haven’t paid their bills so it contributes to the congestion."

“Yellow ward is meant for 18 but as we speak they are 27 people, red is meant for 7 but the total number of patients is 13,” he added.

He therefore appealed to corporate bodies to help by paying the medical bills of needy patients.