This is not too good…

THE state-owned Daily Graphic on its page three (3) on Monday, January 30, 2012 carried a worrisome story with the headline: ‘Korle-Bu Children’s Emergency Ward closed.’ What makes the development which was captured in the Daily Graphic report scary was the outbreak of a bacteria-infection called Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) at the ward.

WE also gathered from the news item that five cases of MRSA have so far been detected among children on admission at the ward. The good news, however, is that those children who have been diagnosed with the bacteria-infection disease are undergoing treatment.

ACCORDING to the report, the MRSA, a type of “Staph” bacteria, which is resistant to several antibiotics, is more difficult to treat. This, experts say, is because the strains of the MRSA do not quickly respond to antibiotics treatment.

ON that same Monday, January 30, 2012 Citifmonline.com reported that three children have died following the outbreak of the bacterial infection. And to compound matters, though the hospital authorities are doing what they can to contain the situation they appear to have no inkling on when the Children’s Emergency Ward would be reopened to the general public.

TODAY believes that those at the helm of affairs at the nation’s flagship hospital must do all they can to get the ward up and running. And though we also share in the belief that the closing down of the ward was appropriate, we also think that not telling Ghanaians when the ward will be reopened is most unfortunate.

IN FACT the current situation at the Children’s Emergency Ward means that a lot of Ghanaian families whose children have emergency cases would be compelled to seek treatment for their children at private hospitals and clinics.

THIS, we believe, would inherently be at an additional cost to families since they would have to attend private clinics or hospitals with similar expertise in child care.

WE on Today cannot fathom why an essential service provider such as Korle Bu should treat its dependants in such manner.

IT therefore comes as no surprise when a board member of Ghana’s flagship health institution, Stella Quaye, recently on an Adom FM morning programme called for the immediate dissolution of the governing Board of the hospital.

ACCORDING to her, the Board has failed in its core business which is delivering of quality clinical services to the hospital.

THE board member further explained that the board chairman, the CEO and the director for medical affairs are all Clinicians, yet the Board has failed to deliver excellent clinical services to the hospital.

SHE remarkably admitted “If these people are there and such things are happening at Korle-Bu, do you think we have done well, we haven’t.”

IT is very evident to us that the internal wrangling in the hospital which begun with the Board Chairman’s decision to lock up the office of the Administrative Director  with its resultant legal battles with the competent Administrative Director, Nelson Menorkpor, has affected quality health delivery.

WE believe Nelson Menorkpor, who according to the board member is “the only trained Director to manage the hospital,” was not allowed to use his vast knowledge to transform the hospital due to reasons best known to the powers that be.

KORLE-BU has thus become the source of its own perceived downfall: the powers that be a busy sparring each other in board room, fighting over who is qualified for an allowance or not to who has the right to use this car or not to who has the right to sack whom, instead of concentration on the very lives for which reason they have been put in office although transient to save, protect and care for.

BUT the good news is that all is not lost: if only the president would quickly put his house in order and do the obvious and answer his “listening president” mantra, then Korle Bu can get back to its glory.

FOR the best way to describe the hospital at present can only be found in Chinua Achebe’s novel, “Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold.”