Editorial

THE HEALTH MINISTER'S CONCERNS

Monday, 22 May 2006
No one can deny that the work of health professionals is tedious, time consuming and exacting. This is especially so when the hospital is inundated when accident victims need emergency services.

But it is unacceptable when people seeking emergency medical care are made to suffer more or put at risk because of the insistence of a health official that they must go through the normal process of accepting patients.

In such cases, something needs to be done and done quickly to save the lives of those who need prompt attention.

As the Minister of Health said at Abokobi on Wednesday, it is a sad commentary that today, patients suffer unduly because of the insistence on going through the normal process of accepting patients even in emergency cases.

Major Courage Quashigah (rtd) addressing the 38th Annual General Conference of the Christian Health Association of Ghana also wondered in the light of great significance of the solemn oaths and pledges how health professionals could look in the eye of a patient in agonizing pain and lay down their tools for material reward. No doubt this is a reference to industrial actions by health professionals.

There have been a lot of complaints by both relatives and patients who go to some of the public hospitals over the sort of treatment given them by nurses and other health staff. It seems the complaints have yielded no dividends.

These complaints and reports have not only been found in newspapers, but from important discussions on Radio and Television of late.

The point is, people who go to hospital, need to be treated humanely hence the hue and cry about the attitude of some nurses, lab technicians and other health workers.

It is good that the Minister of Health is drawing attention to some of the lapses inherent in the health delivery system and which need to be addressed without delay.

Certainly, there is much which the Minister and his officials have to do to ensure that cases requiring emergency attention are not delayed unduly, while the patient suffers for want of prompt attention.

In our view, hospital administrations which we believe have knowledge about the unfortunate attitude of some of their staff seem to have done little or nothing about the complaints.

And it is for this reason that we ask whether the hospitals have no mechanism to check what is being complained of. If the answer is no, what are the administrations doing? What about the Ministry of Health itself, have the authorities any plan to deal with the sad situation?

We refer to the statement made by the president of the Ghana Union Conference of Seventh Day Adventist, Pastor Samuel A. Larmie. He pointed out that the Christian Health Association of Ghana workers should strive to treat all equally and never allow racial barrier, societal status, religious affiliations or colour to serve as blocks preventing them from discharging honest labour to the people. This is very important and ought to be treated with all seriousness.

By discussing the problem publicly, the Minister of Health has taken a good step forward. We trust that his office will take the necessary measures to address the concerns the Minister himself has identified.