Management of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH), in Kumasi, is appealing to the Ministry of Health to extend a helping hand to the struggling Dialysis Unit of the referral center.

Currently, the hospital is overwhelmed with patients in dire need of dialysis treatment following the government's announcement of free treatment of some aspects of dialysis treatment under the National Health Insurance Authority.

Speaking on Abusua FM in Kumasi, the public relations director of the teaching hospital Kwame Frimpong disclosed, that the hospital is currently managing dialysis cases with only seven (7) dialysis machines.

“When the government announced the free dialysis treatment policy under the National Health Authority scheme, we started the free treatment immediately before other hospitals. We bought three dialysis machines at a cost of 1.6 million Ghana Cedis. Management also repaired 2 broken dialysis machines we had in the hospital. So currently we have 7 Dialysis machines in the hospital," he said.

He disclosed the facility is currently overwhelmed with patients seeking dialysis treatment day and night since the government announced the policy.

He added the hospital is in the process of putting internal resources together to procure six more dialysis machines to manage the overwhelming traffic at the dialysis unit of the hospital.

“Ghana Airport Company Limited has promised to donate two brand new dialysis machines to us. Springfield has already donated and has also promised to give as many as three machines. We have sent assistance to several people and organizations to come to the aid of the hospital. Ideally, it wasn’t our responsibility as a hospital to be buying equipment for patient treatment. Our IGF was for procurement of drugs and other consumables," he explained.

He added these huge investments by management through the use of internal generation affect the hospital's day-to-day administrative operation but that’s the situation we are presently confronted with.

“We are calling on the government to resource our dialysis unit like they are doing for other facilities to check the traffic we are confronted with in Kumasi. This we believe will make the running of the government policy successful in achieving its healthcare treatment objective.

He disclosed “For all you may know, hospitals that are receiving dialysis machines from the government have not started the implementation of the government-free dialysis treatment while we who have started are struggling with traffic. Here at Komfo Anokye, we overdo this because when we stop certain treatment for patients it means they should go and die because such service will not be available in any other facility within the southern sector of the country.”