By Lawrencia Akoto Frempong
Tema, April 17, GNA – Nana Mensima Aikins, Senior Nursing Officer at the Tema General Hospital’s Female Medical Ward, has disclosed that the ward lacks an X-ray machine and other medical items.
Nana Aikins made this disclosure when the Tema chapter of the Women Empowerment Foundation International (WEFI) presented assorted items valued at GHC40,000.00 to the female medical ward of the hospital.
According to her, patients at the hospital were shuttled back and forth from their wards to the Outpatient Department (OPD) for X-ray services since the hospital’s only mobile X-ray machine was malfunctioning.
She explained that the movements distorted their healing and medical processes because some had to be taken off medical procedures or taken off supplemental oxygen to be transported to the x-ray department either in the open or by ambulance at a fee.
She revealed that given the severity of their conditions, it was occasionally not medically necessary to transfer patients from their wards, particularly outside, to the x-ray department, forcing them in some cases to pay for an ambulance.
“The x-ray is a major component for a doctor to make a complete diagnosis of patients for treatment and healing, so if such facilities are not available to speed up the treatment and medication processes, it becomes difficult to even render further services to the patient,” she lamented.
She added that the lack of electronic vital sign hospital monitors in the female medical ward to record patients’ pulse and oxygen saturation rates, respiratory rate, temperature, and blood pressure was another deficiency in patients’ full diagnoses to facilitate their treatment.
She claimed that without the patient monitors, “it was challenging to keep track of and record the crucial data required for the diagnosis and therapy.”
The 32-bed female ward was also crammed with rickety hospital beds, including just one adjustable bed and open lockers, which Nana Aikins described as less than ideal.
She, therefore, made an appeal for assistance from charitable organizations like the WEFI and other benevolent individuals.
Before presenting the donated items, which included beds, oxygen tanks, plastic and wheelchairs, zimmer frames, bedsheets, water and soft drink bottles, and an adjustable bed, WEFI replaced all of the ward’s outdated curtains with new ones and fixed them in place to give the ward a fresh appearance.
Mrs. Christiana Agyemang Berko, President of the WEFI chapter in Tema, noted that the act was a continuation of WEFI’s charitable efforts over the past 15 years and its adoption of the TGH’s female medical ward in 2017.
The hospital commended WEFI for their assistance and invited other organizations and individuals to make small donations to help the hospital serve the community better.
GNA