An accomplished medical doctor and a specialist Neurosurgeon at the Neuroscience Unit of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital has appealed to the state to without delay, see to the construction of an ultra-modern dedicated departmental centre to boost healthcare delivery in the country.
The unit is currently housed on one of the floors of the five-story Surgical Department at the Korle But Teaching Hospital with just four ICU beds – a situation said to be hampering quality neurosurgical service delivery to patients nationwide and across the West African sub-region.
Not only does the unit lack space to run its day-to-day medical activities it does not also have enough critical nursing staff as well as the requisite medical equipment and supplies for smooth operations.
The deteriorating state of the unit together with the accompanying challenges came to light after a 13-year-old boy, Michael Kofi Asiamah, unfortunately died at the unit after brain surgery complications.
Dr. Mohammed Hadi Abdullah, the lead surgeon on young Michael’s surgical procedure admitted that, despite the competent team of medics at the unit, the unavailability of a functional health system has led to many preventable disease aggravations and to some extent deaths.
“Bear in mind that, the Korle Bu Neuroscience block is a unit, not even a department. This unit actually occupies a single block of a five-story building and arguably serves the whole of Ghana and to some extent the whole of West Africa, in terms of neurosurgical practice. Sometimes, we have an overflow of our cases. So for instance, we take about 70 percent of the space at the VIP ward on the sixth floor”, Dr. Abdullah lamented on the Citi Breakfast Show on Tuesday, May 11, 2021.
The Neuroscience Centre when constructed and stocked with state-of-the-art health equipment he believes will reduce morbidities and mortalities recorded at the unit.
“It’s baffling that over the years, looking at this number and statistics, nobody has thought through to say that we need a neuroscience centre in this country where we can have a helipad where patients from all over the country can be airlifted for simple neurosurgical. Even if we have not produced enough neurosurgeons, all we need is an air ambulance to airlift patients to the centre”, he pleaded.
Cost
When posed with the question of the amount needed for such a project, Dr. Abdullah told the host of the Citi Breakfast Show, Bernard Avle that the cost of the centre as determined a decade ago was pegged at US$30 million.
He quickly added that the cost might have more than tripled to about US$100 million now but explained that half the amount can be secured to begin construction works.
“There was an estimate which was done about 10 years ago. It was estimated to cost about US$30 million dollars to put up that particular centre, including the equipment. Probably, we could be talking about US$100 million for a very good functioning neuroscience centre.”
