Management of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital has appealed for additional doctors and nurses to address staff shortages and ease the growing pressure on its emergency care services.
The hospital’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Yakubu Seidu Adam, said the facility needed more permanent medical personnel to improve patient care, particularly at its Accident and Emergency Centre and Intensive Care Unit (ICU).
Speaking during an engagement with members of Parliament’s Health Committee, Dr. Adam disclosed that the hospital’s 64-bed Accident and Emergency Centre was struggling to cope with the large number of patients requiring urgent medical attention.
He said the centre receives accident victims and other emergency cases referred from different parts of the country, placing considerable pressure on the available staff and facilities.
According to him, the hospital’s staffing situation is complicated by its role as a major training institution, where many doctors are medical trainees who leave after completing their programmes.
Although Korle Bu has a significant number of doctors, Dr. Adam explained that many are not permanent employees, creating difficulties in maintaining adequate staffing levels over time.
“This is a training institution. We have a number of doctors, but when we look at our numbers, most of them are not our staff. It’s a training institution; they come, we train them, and they go,” he said.
He stressed that recruiting additional medical officers would help ensure the continuous availability of experienced personnel to support emergency and intensive care services.
Dr. Adam said management had already brought the staffing challenges to the attention of the hospital’s Director of Human Resources and the Minister of Health.
He used the parliamentary engagement to renew the call for more doctors and nurses, emphasising that adequate staffing was essential to providing timely and effective treatment.
