Dr. Opoku Ware Ampomah, Chief Executive Officer of Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, has provided clarification regarding the recent closure of the hospital’s renal unit, which he attributed to a shortage of critical supplies necessary for the unit’s operation.
The renal unit had been closed for three weeks, but the hospital has now reopened its outpatient dialysis services following the resolution of the supply issue.
Initially, renal patients had planned to protest on Wednesday, August 21, in response to the shortage, which had severely disrupted their access to essential medical care. However, the timely arrival of the required supplies allowed the hospital to resume dialysis sessions on the same day, averting the planned demonstration.
During an interview on The Point of View on Channel One TV, Dr. Ampomah elaborated on the circumstances that led to the delay in receiving the necessary supplies. He explained that while the hospital continued to manage emergency and in-patient cases, outpatient dialysis services were temporarily halted, and patients were advised to seek treatment at other facilities during the shortage.
“For this current situation, we have been engaging with our supplier after we had paid, settled our obligations, and were expecting the next delivery of consumables. This has been packed since March this year; we were told that they were having issues with shipping lines. We were told that it was a global phenomenon, where they were not getting enough ships to come through because of what was happening in the Suez Canal and other places. So, it affected supply but, then we were assured that it would come in eminently.
“Unfortunately, it only arrived at the beginning of July. We were expecting that the paperwork would be ready for the shipping lines so that we could clear it from the port. But unfortunately, it took a while for the shipping lines to get the paperwork released to us. It was emails, and phone calls back and forth. We didn’t have the supplies…
“We decided to take care of only emergencies and in-patients and asked the outpatients to patronize the other facilities around in the meantime for us to get going,” he explained to host Bernard Avle.
Dr. Ampomah also acknowledged the frustrations of the patients, noting that although alternative dialysis services were available at other facilities, many patients preferred Korle-Bu due to its more affordable pricing.
“One of the things stirring up this whole thing is not that there are no options for dialysis, but because Korle-Bu is the only place they can get other prices [affordable],” he added.
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