Dr Ekua Amoako writes: Charles Amissah's death exposes Ghana's deepening healthcare crisis
Charles Amissah's death exposes Ghana's deepening healthcare crisis. The death of Charles Amissah is a painful indictment of a healthcare system that continues to fail the very people it is meant to protect. The disturbing reality is that this death may have been avoidable. According to the expert report led by Prof. Agyekum Badu Akosa, an effective Bed Management Network could likely have saved Mr Amissah's life. Ghana once had a system with close to 80 per cent national coverage and more than eight years of patient data, but that progress was abandoned.
The country inherited more than 300 ambulances and a trained workforce of emergency medical personnel, yet the system appears increasingly overstretched and under-supported. Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) are no longer receiving Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) training. The Akosa report noted that administering intravenous fluids during transportation could potentially have improved Charles Amissah's chances of survival. Doctors are treating patients in overcrowded corridors. Thousands of trained nurses and newly qualified doctors remain unemployed despite dangerous patient-to-doctor ratios in major facilities such as Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Ridge Hospital and the Police Hospital.
Government must employ the thousands of trained doctors and nurses currently without postings, reinstate and modernise the national healthcare database and Bed Management System, strengthen the ambulance network and emergency response infrastructure, and complete abandoned and near-complete health facilities across the country.
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Dr. Ekua Amoako highlights the unfortunate passing of Charles Amissah and its implications for Ghana's healthcare system. She points to systemic failures and neglect, hinting at potentially avoidable circumstances.
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