PRESS STATEMENT BY CONCERNED CITIZENS ASSOCIATION OF TAMALE ON THE REHABILITATION OF THE TAMALE TEACHING HOSPITAL – WEDNESDAY 24TH JANUARY 2007

Distinguished ladies and gentlemen of the press, we wish to welcome you all to this morning’s press conference on behalf of Concerned Citizens Association of Tamale (CCAT) and patriotic citizens of the Northern sector and of Ghana.

It would be recalled that on Monday September 4th, 2006, we petitioned the Hon. Minister of Health through the Hon. Northern Regional Minister on the delay in the rehabilitation of the Tamale Teaching hospital. As we are sitting here today, we have not received any response from the Health Minister.

We have therefore called this press conference to re-echo our dissatisfaction about the neglect of the Tamale Teaching hospital.

For the sake of those who do not know the history of the Tamale Teaching Hospital, you are welcome to Northern Ghana's leading state-run teaching and referral hospital, built in 1974 and once Ghana’s most prestigious medical complex. It has very limited specialised departments and diagnostic centres, plus various wards with a total of 380 beds. The hospital, which is a four -storey tower houses four wards, and general purpose theatre and an X-ray Unit. The structure is an extension of an elaborate out patient department, which contains 10 consulting rooms; a pharmacy Unit, eye and ENT specialized. The Gynaecology ward and antenatal Units are contained in separate ground structures all linked together by roofed walkways. The total surface area of the hospital is 490,000 sq meters out of which 122,500 sq meters have developed. Ladies and gentlemen of the press, the Tamale Teaching hospital has not seen any meaningful rehabilitation since it was commissioned thirty-three (33) years ago thus leaving in its wake serious deterioration and gloom. Although the people of Tamale have made several appeals to past and present governments to rehabilitate the hospital, these had gone unheeded. I will be charitable if I described the present state of the hospital as a death trap. Most of its structures have either collapsed or at the verge of collapsing. This compelled the staff of the hospital to agitate for the relocation of the third and fourth floors to a building where the patients literally compete with animals for space. A patient who is on admission to the hospital is discharged with malaria because of the poor state of the makeshift wards.

The hospital has no running water and it relies on unreliable tanker services. The sanitation at the hospital is an eyesore as both humans and animals defecate indiscriminately because the hospital has no place of convenience.

In addition, the so-called Tamale Teaching Hospital has no standby-generator and sometimes the power go off at the middle of an operation. One doctor, whose name I will not mention said he recently performed emergency surgery on a woman using the light from his mobile phone when the lights suddenly went out.

The situation is a disincentive for health workers to accept postings to the hospital.

The CCAT wishes to commend the health workers especially, the Cuban health brigade, who have braved the odds to work under such deplorable conditions.

The hospital which, serve as referral centre for the whole Northern sector of the country lacks basic equipment and the necessary manpower. The laboratory which was built as an after thought is on the verge of collapse. In deed all consultants who have inspected the building have recommended that the building should be pulled down.

The response of government had been to verbally ‘upgrade’ the hospital to a teaching hospital without providing any additional facilities and resources to befit the status of a teaching hospital. I wish to state that we are not interested in names, after all a drunken person is not interested in the label of a bottle, but in its content.

Medical students of the University for Development Studies (UDS), who are to be trained at the proposed Tamale Teaching Hospital, are sent to either the Universities of Ghana Medical School in Accra or the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi at a colossal sum due to the poor state of the Tamale hospital. For the clinical training the UDS have to cough over two billion cedis annually to pay the two universities. The only affiliation these students have with the UDS is that they were enrolled by the UDS. Because the hospital is not functioning as a teaching hospital, the three northern regions do not have any direct benefit from the medical school.

Availability of good health facility in any area would no doubt promote commerce and industry, thereby creating job avenues for a region that has an unenviable accolade as a high poverty rate area.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the media, we have information that, the cost of rehabilitating the hospital is 45 million Euros which the Netherlands government has agreed to give one third of the total amount as grant, part of the remaining amount as loan and the rest as Ghana government counterpart funding. Consultancy work on the rehabilitation of the hospital has been completed by Osei Kufour Associates for some time. Messrs Interbeton Company are responsible for the civil works and Messrs Simead Company are to take up the supply of equipment. The two companies are Dutch companies.

The government of Ghana’s financial commitment to the counterpart funding is delaying the rehabilitation project of the hospital. The delay by government has been confirmed when the Finance Minister presented the 2007 budget statement to Parliament last November. There was no mentioned of the rehabilitation of the hospital. This was a clear indication of real non-political commitment.

However, The Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi, which is only four hours drive from the nation’s leading hospital, Korle Bu Teaching Hospital has between 2001 and 2006 received massive injunction of resources with the objective of making it a centre of excellence by 2008. Physical developments that have taken place at the hospital include a modern physiotherapy centre, a radiotherapy centre, the completion of 48 flats for doctors and the completion a block of 32 flats for nurses. This is in addition to virtually new equipment for all sectors of the hospital. At the same time hospitals in Northern Ghana, especially the Tamale Teaching Hospital has been neglected. Could this be a deliberate attempt to further marginalise the already marginalise people of the Northern Ghana? Your guess is as good as ours.

Ladies and gentlemen of the media, we the CCAT are demanding that a new teaching hospital should be constructed from the scratch and the current hospital m2ust be rehabilitated to serve as a polyclinic. New hospitals have been constructed in Ho, Sunyani and Cape Coast in addition to their existing hospitals. Since it has been possible for the government to source funding for the construction of these new hospitals, we do not think we would be demanding too much if we ask the government to do same to the people of Tamale and for that matter the whole of Northern Ghana.

Apart from inadequate health personnel and poor infrastructure, most of the equipment in the hospital appears to be near or beyond their effective lifespan, with the rest having completely broken down without any replacement.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the media, the absence of a security fence wall around the hospital is leaving equipment and materials at the mercy of thieves. This also has very serious negative implications on environmental sanitation as authorities of the hospital find it extremely difficult to restrict the influx of visitors and stray domestic animals into the hospital premises. Encroachment on the hospital land by private developers is also another serious problem due to the absence of a fence wall. The hospital is situated in the midst of residential settlements. Accommodation for staff has been a major hindrance. Staffs who are posted to the hospital often do not report due to lack of accommodation.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the media, distinguished personalities, past and present governments have visited the hospital to know the real situation and yet nothing has been done about it. At the moment there are some minor renovation works going on at the ground floor and parts of the hospital. This could however be likened to drawing water from the sea with a spoon. Ladies and Gentlemen of the media, we the CCAT want to know how long successive governments would continue to toy with the issue of the Tamale Teaching hospital. We look forward to seeing an end to this politics of deceit of promises and of failures. It is about time that, the government declares the hospital a disaster zone and not wait for it to collapse and claim valuable lives before a commission of enquiry is instituted to find out the cause.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the media, we are convinced beyond reasonable doubts that the issue of the hospital is a calculated plan by past and present governments towards keeping the Northern sector at the bottom of national development.

It is against this background that we the CCAT will be compel to embark on a peaceful demonstration at the end of March 2007 if government do not expedite action on the issue of the hospital.

Ladies and Gentlemen of the media, we thank you for your attention.

You may now ask your questions.