Lack of doctors hampering quality healthcare delivery – Dr. Atobrah

The Bolgatanga Regional Hospital is facing challenges in its efforts to deliver efficient health care due to lack of Doctors. 

The hospital which serves as a referral centre to all the health facilities in the Upper East Region currently have no Surgical doctor and a Gynecologist. 

This came to light at the Annual Performance review meeting of the Bolgatanga Regional Hospital. 

The Medical Director of the Bolgatanga Regional Hospital, Dr. Patrick Atobrah, said the hospital is in dire need of Doctors especially Surgical Doctors and Gynaecologist to aid health care delivery and to cater for its teeming client base in the Region. 

The Director said the hospital will need a minimum of 30 Doctors of various categories to operate comfortably, and appealed to the government to post doctors to the hospital to aid in health delivery. 

He said although efforts had to be put in place to attract doctors to the area, the hospital was constrained and could not fund such initiatives. 

Dr. Atobrah said apart from the lack of doctors which was a major challenge of the hospital, the facility had only one X-ray Technician and a Pharmacist which exerted pressure at the units especially the Pharmacy Unit where patients cue for several hours to be attended to.  

Dr. Atobrah said the region performed poorly on issues concerning maternal health care. 

According to him, players in the health sector in the region will put innovative measures in place to reduce maternal mortality. 

Maternal deaths in 2017 in the region saw a significant increase from the figures in 2016. 

The Region recorded 43 maternal deaths resulting from haemorrhage and anaemia in 2017. 

The Nurses Manager of the Bolgatanga regional Hospital, Joshua Abanga, said must be sensitive to patient's socio-cultural and religious backgrounds, age, gender and other differences as well as the needs of patients with disabilities. 

He said they have been a target of over two-point-seven million to screen them on TB and HIV/AIDs, hence the need for nurses not to sit at their comfort zones but go round the various houses in their catchment areas and embark on the screening.  

Mr. Abanga said universal health coverage is achieved for a given economy when all residents, regardless of income, are able to have access to adequate health care without suffering financial hardship.  

He said one of the important factors for achieving universal health coverage is access to technologies for the diagnoses and treatment of illness. 

According to Mr. Abanga, the availability of these inputs for the provision of health care represents structural quality.

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