The Medical Director of the Upper East Regional Hospital, Dr Joseph Kojo Tambil, has called on the government to immediately convert the facility into a teaching hospital, arguing that its current status limits access to critical resources needed to improve specialist healthcare delivery in the region.
According to him, although the hospital is functioning effectively as a secondary referral facility, upgrading it to a teaching hospital would strengthen its capacity to provide advanced medical services and attract greater investment.
Dr Tambil made the appeal during a stakeholder engagement in Bolgatanga as part of a nationwide sensitisation tour by the Administrator of the Ghana Medical Trust Fund, popularly known as MahamaCares, Adjoa Obuobia Darko-Opoku.
“Our regional hospital, I will say that the situation is not that bad. As we speak, we can boldly say that this hospital is a well-functioning secondary hospital, a referral centre. But what can make us move to the next level is for this hospital to be converted into a teaching hospital,” he said.
The Medical Director explained that the allocation of healthcare resources in Ghana often favoured teaching hospitals, leaving regional hospitals with limited access to equipment and other essential support.
He argued that the absence of a teaching hospital in the Upper East Region placed the area at a disadvantage when resources were distributed.
“When resources are being distributed, it is done in a hierarchical manner. So, everything that is coming goes to the teaching hospitals first, before the regional hospitals get. And the fact that we do not have a teaching hospital means that a lot of the time, we lose out,” he lamented.
Dr Tambil also weighed in on discussions about the location of a proposed teaching hospital for the region, insisting that the immediate priority should be establishing the facility rather than debating where it should be situated.
“I have heard a lot of debate about the teaching hospital. We are thinking of where to site it. I think that the question should not be where to site it. For me, the question should be, when should we have it? And I’ll say that we should have it now,” he stressed.
He proposed that the Upper East Region should have both a teaching hospital and a university hospital, arguing that the two facilities could serve complementary purposes in healthcare delivery, medical education and research.
According to him, a university hospital would support the work of the Navrongo Health Research Centre and the University of Technology and Applied Sciences in Navrongo, while a teaching hospital would strengthen specialist healthcare services in the region.
“What we should have is that we should have a teaching hospital, and we should also have a university hospital that will support the way that Navrongo Research Centre and the university is already doing. So, it is not having either this or that, but having both,” he explained.
Dr Tambil cited teaching hospitals in Tamale, Kumasi, Cape Coast and Sunyani as examples of facilities supporting advanced healthcare delivery in other parts of the country.
He questioned why the Upper East Region should continue without a similar facility despite its healthcare needs.
The Medical Director maintained that converting the Upper East Regional Hospital into a teaching hospital would be an important step towards improving healthcare delivery and addressing the region’s longstanding challenges in accessing specialist medical services.
A1 Radio | 101.1 MHz | David Azure | Bolgatanga
