Fifteen children have tragically lost their lives due to the lack of dialysis machines and consumables, at the Tamale Teaching Hospital have.

Health officials at the facility explained that the shortage of dedicated machines for children forced them to use adult ones, resulting in this unfortunate incident.

In an interview with Citi FM on Wednesday, December 6, Adam Yahaya Wanzam, the Nurse Manager of the Tamale Teaching Hospital Dialysis Unit, expressed his distress over the situation.

He urgently appealed to the government for assistance to prevent the continuation of this distressing trend.

“We have lost over 10 to 15 children who were supposed to receive dialysis. But for a lack of paediatric machines, we were improvising with the adult machines, and the adult machines and consumables are not for children.”

Wanzam emphasized that the repercussions of this shortage are heart-breaking, affecting not just the children who lost their lives but also their families, who now bear the unbearable pain of such a tragic loss.

“We are calling on individuals and Non-governmental organisations to come to our aid by helping us acquire these paediatric machines and consumables so that when an innocent child finds him/herself in this situation, the Tamale Teaching Hospital Dialysis unit can be able to rescue them.”

Public outcry has arisen in Ghana over the recent difficulties and increased costs associated with accessing dialysis.

The attempt by the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) to raise the dialysis fees faced strong resistance from the public, who viewed the move as potentially fatal for many kidney patients.

Reports indicate that during the period when KBTH closed its renal unit for several weeks due to indebtedness, 19 patients lost their lives.