The Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) underwent the largest facelift in the hospital’s recent history during the first half of this year which saw many deteriorated facilities receiving some repairs and paintings as part of an ongoing beatification exercise to improve patient care and operations at the hospital.
Consequently, facilities such as the Doctors’ Flats, Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT), Laundry, Breast Care, Finance, Human Resources blocks and the fence wall of the Family Medicine Directorate which were all in a deplorable state, have been given a major facelift.
Addressing the 2023 Mid-Year Performance Review in Kumasi yesterday, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of KATH, Prof Otchere Addai-Mensah, noted that among the key projects that would engage the attention of management for the second part of the year will be to complete a number of on-going projects at the hospital including the Assisted Reproductive Technology(ART) Centre, Patients Relatives Hostel, expansion and refurbishment of the Dialysis Centre and the renovation and modernisation of the Main Theatre of the hospital at the cost of about GH¢1.5 million.
Prof. Addai-Mensah disclosed that there has been a significant progress in the performance of the hospital in the first six months the year under review, compared to the same period in 2022 and explained that management consciously implemented a number of measures to improve patients’ experience at the hospital.
The CEO said “Specialist O.P.D cases registered for the period was 133,267 as against a target of 123,971 representing a positive variance of 7.50 percent. Primary Care O.P.D cases also went up to 31,378 which was 14 percent above the set target of 27,500 cases and Radiotherapy services was 3,036 compared to the 3,260 that were recorded”.
He said all these could not have been achieved without a “combination of interventions including improved staff output, early start of clinics, availability of medical consumables, laboratory reagents and pharmaceutical products, as well as enhanced supervision and enforcement of discipline by management.
Touching on the introduction of payment of hospital bills through MoMo and POS for the first time in the history of the hospital, Prof. Addai-Mensah noted that ” the use of Momo and POS payments options for settling patients’ bills has proven so popular that cumulative payments made through them to date since their introduction in March 2023 stands around Gh¢2.2 million.
He said in line with the hospital’s theme for the year which is “Driving a customer-centric agenda for health delivery: the role of management, staff and stakeholders”, strict enforcement of discipline among members of staff has resulted in better patient care at the hospital.
Management, he said, has also increased the medical package for each staff and their families by 25 percent and the thirteenth month allowances owed to members of the Health Services Workers Union were paid, apart from general increase in the levels of allowances paid to line managers at the hospital.
Prof. Addai-Mensah disclosed that between January and June 2023 under review, 16 members of staff were given sanctions including a dismissal, warnings and suspensions without salary for various infractions of the disciplinary code of the hospital.
From Thomas Agbenyegah Adzey, Kumasi
