Checks by a1radioonline.com have revealed that the Bolgatanga Hospital is challenged with the lack of water and the breakdown of various machines used in the delivery of health care.
The hospital which serves as a referral facility to all other hospitals in the Upper East region has had their taps not flowing for a month and has left patients with no choice but to walk long distances from the hospital in search of water for their personal use.
“Since we came we have faced a lot of challenges. Water is one, they just locked it. So those who have to stay here and take care of the patients are suffering. Getting enough water for drinking they cannot get. They say they have to go long way to some school down there before they get water. Patients who need water and some basic needs we can’t get them. I trace that to the authorities. I think they are not efficient,” a dejected husband who had brought his wife from Kongo told a1radioonline.com.
The lack of water at the facility has left patients with no option but to use their own bed sheets because the hospital washing machine has been rendered defunct.
Like the unavailability of water, the X-RAY machine for the hospital has been faulty for several months and patients have to be referred to Navrongo or Bongo to take an X-RAY.
A devastated lady who brought her mother who was going through an excruciating pain expressed her frustration in these words “our challenge here is the X-RAY. I had to take my mother to Navrongo because the day we brought her, she had to take an X-RAY but because the facility does not have an X-RAY machine, we had to wait and go to Navrongo the next day. I had to support my mother at the back because the pain was serious.”
Another worrying situation at the hospital is the fact that the National Health Insurance does not work at the Bolgatanga hospital. All the services at the hospital are paid for by patients even if they have the National Health Insurance cards.
A father who was transferred from Nangode where he received treatment for free because of the NHIS mentioned that “here we have been made to pay for everything which was given to us for free in Nangode. We have so far spent five million although we have paid for NHIS which is supposed to give us free health care but that is not the case. If things are like this then where are we heading as a country.”
“In fact, this hospital has a big problem. When we came here yesterday everything you have to buy, everything you have to buy. It means if you don’t have money you have to die. So those who do not have money take their prescription and go home to die. Last Friday, I was in the mortuary and the bodies were lying on the floor just like that. The other fridge is spoilt so only one is working and that is bad,” another user of the hospital lamented.
However, when contacted by a1radioonline.com on the poor state of the Bolgatanga hospital, officials of the facility declined to comment on the various issues raised.
Meanwhile, former President John Dramani Mahama during his final State of the Nation Address mentioned that the Bolgatanga hospital had been upgraded to a regional hospital which has helped in improving access to health care to the people of the Upper East Region.
By: Offei-Akoto Ayeh/A1RADIOONLINE.COM/GHANA
