Accra, June 6, GNA -- The 37th Military Hospital has come under intense pressure where large numbers of patients continually besieged since Doctors in public hospitals embarked upon their industrial action. In-patients occupied all the available beds and stretchers, others slept on bare mackintosh on the floor, some with their newborn babies when the GNA visited the facility.

Colonel Jaswant M. Wadhwani, Commanding Officer, of the Hospital in an interview said, the action had increased the workload at the Hospital, especially in all the four emergency departments.

"Beds in all the emergency departments including the Medical, Paediatrics, Surgical and Trauma and Obstetrics and Gynaecology are full as well as those in the wards; even stretchers have all been taken over by patients," he said.

The first three departments, he noted, had twice to trice their normal number of patients "but with the Gynaecology Department the situation is very critical with very heavy attendance". Colonel Wadhwani said to ensure that all patients were attended to at the Maternity Unit, the Hospital had resorted to a strategy where mothers, who had safe delivery were discharged within 24 hours to make room for others.

A visit to the Unit revealed that, patients from all walks of life were being attended to except that some had to lie with their newborn babies on pieces of cloth spread on mackintosh on the floor along the corridors.

Surgical cases, he said, were given preferential treatment. Colonel Wadhwani said with the present situation the staff were over stretched and fatigue was setting in but "we would continue to assist whenever the need be.

"Strike is not in the vocabulary of the Military. The burden of wearing the uniform can be seen; yet the devotion and the will to provide service for Ghanaians is always guaranteed," he said. Colonel Wadhwani said the diagnostic centres including the laboratory were automated and opened to the public on a 24-hour basis. He said to ensure quality service, the Hospital was adopting a strategy where cases were stabilized, observed and discharged as soon as possible for patients to come for reviews instead of keeping them continuously while depriving others attention.

"But each case is reviewed on an individual basis, he said. At the Accident Emergency of the Surgical and Trauma Department, patients, who could not get beds, remained in a sitting position in wheelchairs for hours, because the stretchers had been exhausted. Some mothers at the Paediatric Department had to hold their babies while infusions were being administered because even tables had been taken over by others.

At the Medical Emergency, there were no available chairs even for the nurses, because they had been given to patients, while trolleys in a long queue blocked every available space. 6 June 06