The Board Chair of Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Titus Beyuo, has revealed that the hospital’s functional bed capacity has dropped to about 1,500, citing broken and unreplaced beds as a key challenge.
His comments come in the wake of a viral video that appeared to show patients lying on the floor at the hospital’s Accident and Emergency Centre due to a shortage of beds, triggering widespread public concern.
Management of the hospital had earlier stated that it could not verify the authenticity of the footage, maintaining that patients were seated on chairs while awaiting admission and not being treated on the floor.
The hospital’s Chief Executive Officer, Yakubu Seidu Adam, also dismissed claims that patients were being treated on the floor, insisting that the video does not reflect conditions in the emergency wards.
Speaking in an interview with Bernard Avle on Channel One TV’s The Point of View, Prof. Beyuo emphasised the urgent need to increase bed capacity at the facility, countering claims by some Emergency Medicine Residents that adding more beds would not resolve congestion.
“It’s a very unfortunate statement. We need more beds. No one can argue that we don’t need beds. The World Health Organisation suggests that we need two to five beds per 1,000 population. Ghana has about 0.9 beds per 1,000 population. As of today, the functional bed capacity in Korle Bu is about 1,500. It has come down. Some beds have broken down and have not been replaced,” he said.
Prof. Beyuo also expressed confidence in the ability of the Health Minister, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, to address the challenges facing the hospital.
“I want to reassure the doctors that the Minister of Health has sufficient knowledge of the system. He has the commitment and the political will to solve the problem,” he added.
