General News of Wednesday, 23 December 2015

Source: tv3network.com

Advertise Korle-Bu CEO position – Expert

Front view of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra Front view of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra

An energy expert is calling for the position of the Chief Executive Officer of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra to be made an advertised one to avoid the constant bad blood between staff and those appointed.

Commenting on the recent development at the hospital during the newspaper review segment on TV3's New Day, Mr Kwadwo Poku argued that a lot of the accusations against the CEO and pressures for him to resign would not occur if the position is made an advertised one.

"The Chief Executive position should be advertised position and not appointed. It should be advertised, a qualified person screened and appointed. That way, he is hold accountable, he does the right thing," he contended.

He said it would thus be reasonable fire the CEO should the person fail to achieve targets set for him, adding "to me, I think if we run some of these organizations as corporate...that will take some of these problems away".

Currently, it is the President who appoints the Chief Executive Officer of the Hospital.

But Mr Opoku said the current system of choosing a CEO is not the best as it allows for people who have connections within government or with the president to lobby, and that advertising to choose a qualified person would bring about efficiency.

A presidential staffer, Kojo Adu-Asare on his part, said he supports the suggestion, saying "personally, I think Korle-Bu should be outsourced".

He said it has come to the point where it is important to outsource the management of the hospital and a "management team tasked to run Korle-Bu and then government supervises."

The Senior Staff Association of the hospital have been on a collision course with the CEO, Management and Board accusing them of supervising the payment of over GHC1 million as judgement debt.

The association again has criticised the management for failing to restructure the hospital which has resulted in the shortage of drugs. It further chastised the CEO Dr. Gilbert Buckle for allegedly spending hospital funds to provide health care services for his family as well as financing his personal travels.

But at a news conference, the Management and the board dismissed the accusations by the association, and challenged the association to provide evidence for paying over 1 million cedis as judgement debt.

According to the management, the allegations are unfounded and baseless, but has lauded efforts by the ministry of health to investigate the issues.