By Florence Afriyie Mensah, GNA
Kumasi, Aug 27, GNA – For the first time in ten years, the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) has recorded a significant decline in maternal mortality.
“We recorded a welcome reduction in institutional maternal deaths from 78 at mid-year 2025 to 55 in the corresponding period in 2026.
“No woman should die, the hospital has been recording higher maternal mortality and this is the first time in a decade that the KATH has a reduction in maternal mortality rate”, Dr. Paa Kwesi Baidoo, Chief Executive Officer of KATH stated, at the opening of the 2026 Mid-year Performance Review conference in Kumasi.
He explained further that “within the period under review, the hospital operationalised the maternal Intensive Care Unit with the support of an aesthesia and intensive care.”
Specialists, according to him, have been working hard to save lives with their eight-bed support room of which four beds are operating currently.
He said optimistic that there would be further reduction in maternal related deaths when the other beds were ready for use.
Dr. Baidoo said the hospital had completed work on the Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) Centre to allow for its operationalization in the course of this month.
By this feat, he said the KATH had emerged as the first public health facility to boast of a state-of-the-art specialist fertility centre in the country.
Again, the main Dialysis Centre of the hospital had been undergoing total refurbishment for some time and was also operationalized to allow for expanded access to specialist dialysis services to the public.
Currently the Centre has about 13 functioning dialysis machines and the rest are at the Accident and Emergency Center
The CEO mentioned the hospital’s strengthened engagements with the Ashanti Regional Health Directorate of the Ghana Health Service, with the objective of carrying out a sustained clinical mentorship and capacity building outreach programmes to peripheral facilities.
The ultimate objective of this endeavour is to improve clinical care and quality of referrals from the peripheral hospitals in the region and beyond, especially in the area of maternal care.
The KATH, he said, had always been on average the highest maternal mortality in the country not because they do not offer quality care but because of its location and several millions of clients they served including referrals.
Some other key performance indicators recorded between January and June 2026 were Specialist Out-Patient Department attendance pegged at 149,055, surpassing the mid-year target of 139,740 and recording a 3.61 percent improvement over the same period in 2025.
Emergency attendance stood at 14,467 against a target of 12,400, representing 116.67 percent achievement and an 8.66 percent rise year-on-year.
Laboratory services performed strongly, with 174,367 cases against a target of 160,401 an achievement rate of 108.71 percent and a 26.49 percent increase over the previous year’s mid-point.
Primary care services came within striking distance of the target at 37,500 against 37,900.
Dr. Baidoo said these gains, however, sat alongside areas that required renewed focus in deliveries, surgeries, physiotherapy, radiotherapy and certain admission figures fell short of the targets set.
GNA
Edited by Kwabia Owusu-Mensah/Benjamin Mensah
Reporter: Florence Afriyie Mensah
Reporter’s email address: [email protected]