Alhaji Issahaque Salia, Upper West Regional Minister, has suggested the formation of a committee to look into the problems of the Regional Hospital to help attract medical personnel and other paramedics to the hospital. He said it was disturbing to hear that the hospital had only two medical doctors and two house officers while ideally, 25 doctors should have been working at the facility to provide quality healthcare services to the people. He said the hospital was an important institution where everybody would visit in his lifetime to seek medical attention, calling for stakeholders' assistance to improve its facilities and conditions. Alhaji Salia made the suggestion during a familiarisation visit to the Regional Hospital to interact with the health directorate and other paramedics to learn of their problems and challenges with the view to addressing them. He expressed gratitude to the workers, who had worked under strenuous conditions including inadequate personnel, equipment, residential accommodation and the lack of motivation. He said they also found it difficult to upgrade their skills and add value to themselves to provide quality health care services to the people. Dr Alexis Nang-Beifubah, Upper West Regional Director of Health Services, said the few doctors at the hospital were over burdened with work and appealed to stakeholders to institute incentive packages to attract doctors and other health workers to accept postings to work in the region. He said at present, the Tumu District Hospital had no medical doctor to cater for the health needs of the people, appealling to medical doctors who hail from the region to sacrifice and come and work at the hospital. Dr Aduko Amiah, Medical Director of the Hospital, raised concern about the distance between the theatre and the maternity ward where pregnant women in labour had to suffer on a stretcher to the theatre and back after having been operated on. He complained that many of the nurses working at the hospital were above 55 years, stressing the need for the provision of residential accommodation and improved working conditions to attract young nurses. Dr Amiah said he was not happy that nurses working at the hospital were scattered all over the municipality. He expressed fear that it would be difficult to mobilise them at the appropriate time to provide medical services during an emergency. He suggested to Alhaji Salia and the Regional Coordinating Council as well as the Ministry of Health to consider providing residential accommodation for all nurses at a specific location near the hospital to make them accessible when the need arose. Alhaji Salia was conducted round the maternity ward where he interacted with mothers and wished them well. He later presented a bull, 30 student mattresses, six mini bags of maize, five bags each of rice and beans as well as plastic plates and buckets to the hospital. Source: GNA