In the midst of a global pandemic, the health needs and health-sustaining capacities of the most vulnerable people in our communities continue to decline. Long before the pandemic, many struggled to feed and attend to everyday health needs and the pandemic has only made this worse. These unfortunate situations cannot go on as usual.
In August 2019, GhanaWeb’s Philip Afeti Korto did an extensive piece on hospitals and abandoned patients. In his words, “diminished compassion has become rampant at our public hospitals thereby making it difficult for hospital authorities to create more space for other patients. This situation also accounts for the travesty commonly referred to as no bed syndrome in the healthcare delivery system. …people bring their sick relatives for admission, visit them for few days and vanish into thin air. Under such unfortunate circumstances, hospital authorities make numerous follow-up calls to these patients’ relatives but to no avail. The abandoned patients’ relatives often pick up the calls and indicate that they are on their way to the hospital but will never show up. Later, they do not even pick up such calls at all.” Find the full story here – Families abandon sick relatives admitted at public hospitals. (2019, August 19). https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/features/Families-abandon-sick-relatives-admitted-at-public-hospitals-773140
This situation has been in existent long before I started a career in healthcare 13years ago. On Monday, March 1, 2021, I am launching a program, one of many to come to do something about this and other situations I will open up about during the launch.
I look forward to unveiling this with you and making a difference the way we have done since 2015/16 when we launched www.clith.org. Please follow @telikemeugene and @clith_ngo on all social media platforms and subscribe to “telikemeugene live”, my youtube channel.
©️ telikemeugene, 23/02/21