Management of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) has met with the Bank of Ghana as part of ongoing efforts by the hospital to solicit funds in setting up a catheterisation laboratory.

The move follows the tragic demise of an emergency physician who reportedly died when doctors at the hospital were unable to treat him after suffering a myocardial infarction, otherwise known as a ‘heart attack’.

The catheterisation laboratory is a specialised area in a hospital equipped for diagnostic and interventional procedures related to the heart and blood vessels.

But the hospital had since its establishment over 70 years ago lacked this crucial facility.

Chief Executive Officer of the hospital, Dr (Med) Paa Kwesi Baidoo, who led a delegation to pay a courtesy call on the central bank in Accra, stressed the urgent need for major retooling of the hospital to provide critical and quality care to patients.

The meeting formed part of the sustained efforts by the CEO to seek state and corporate funding to address some of the equipment and infrastructural deficits facing the hospital.

The meeting had in attendance the two Deputy Governors of the Bank and some other senior officials of the apex bank.

Addressing the meeting, Dr Baidoo highlighted that the obsolete nature of some existing medical equipment and the absence of other critical ones were impeding the delivery of clinical services to the public.

“Currently, most of the critical equipment such as CT scans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Fluoroscopy, Oxygen Plants and Central Sterilisation equipment at the hospital are either down or working at fault. Vital equipment like a Catheterisation Laboratory (CATHLAB) and Mammogram are not even available at all,” he noted.

KATH occupies a unique position in Ghana’s healthcare delivery system, serving as a referral centre from 12 out of the 16 regions.

In spite of its highly skilled workforce and the huge demand for its services, it lacks the requisite stock of equipment and other infrastructure for the comprehensive provision of specialist care to the public.

“Given the state did not have the budget to fully address the above challenges, it is not out of place if corporate entities like the BoG assisted with funding to procure such vital life-saving equipment to enable the hospital to provide the best of specialist services to the public,” Dr Baidoo noted.

Assuring urgent support to the hospital, Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr Johnson Pandit Asiama, acknowledged that health facilities like KATH which were providing critical services to the public deserved to be supported.

He said the management of the bank would consider the appeal and study the list of the critically needed equipment and take a firm decision at the earliest to support healthcare delivery to the middle and northern parts of Ghana.