Joy News has learnt that the conditions of some patients at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) Emergency Centre are worsening because some basic equipment required for recovery have broken down.

A patient is said to have suffered brain damage because there was no oxygen supply machine to keep his brain cells alive.

However, Joy News has learnt that machines supplied by Government for the ICU have been packed in a warehouse.

Kwetey Nartey reports that the situation has made it difficult for critically ill patients to recover quickly.

On a visit to the ICU, Kwetey said the patients now live by grace with inadequate medical care because of the lack of proper equipment.

Only four beds are available with all of them occupied by patients who appear to be in critical condition.

An ideal emergency centre is supposed to have a life support system; respiratory and cardiac support and emergency resuscitation devices but none are available aside from the cardiac monitor placed beside one of the patients.

One of the caregivers who ushered Kwetey around the ICU lamented the deplorable situation in the ICU.

"Some of the patients need the equipment for quick recovery but we don't have it," she indicated.

One of the doctors at the hospital also recounted how the absence of the requisite machines is affecting health care delivery at the ICU.

A patient once died because of the absence of a ventilator, he revealed.

Medical Director at Korle Bu Dr Samuel Asiamah said the equipment to resource the unit has not been fixed because there is an ongoing refurbishment.

"I need to say that we already have other ICUs in Korle Bu so any person who truly needs ICU care will be sent there in the interim.

"Equipment for the refurbishment is already in Ghana and is in the warehouse,"  the doctor mentioned.

"But treatment does not happen at the warehouse. So for many of the people recovery can only happen by grace," Kwetey Nartey concluded in his report.