Korle Bu to Organise Donor's Conference

The Korle Bu Teaching hospital is organising a donor's conference to solicit financial support to enable it rehabilitate and refurbish the nation's premier and referral hospital.

The November 7, 2002 conference, to be held at the M-Plaza, is on the theme, "Korle Bu in transition".

The Chief Executive of the hospital, Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, said in an interview that an all-hands-on-deck approach is required to help clearly establish and propel a meaningful strategy to push the hospital forward.

He said management wants to make a fresh change in the affairs of the hospital by involving everybody so that people appreciate the direction the hospital will be moving.

He said this will involve relying on the available resources to deliver quality services, relying on staff of the hospital for construction works and putting in place structures to check waste.

He explained that government's inability to foot the entire cost of rehabilitation, refurbishment and meeting other needs of the hospitals has warranted such an initiative.

Prof. Frimpong-Boateng said the conference will expose the present state of Korle Bu to participants at the conference while the vision of management will be put before them for support.

He said management has already initiated work on road reconstruction and gardening to beautify the hospital while security has also been tightened, stressing that "Korle Bu will not be the same again".

He commended the Member of Parliament for Ablekuma South, Ms. Theresa Tagoe for committing herself to the cause of the hospital.

The Chief Executive also appealed to the hospital's business partners to endeavour to do genuine business with the hospital.

He cautioned against business partners colluding with staff of the hospital to supply fake products or inflating invoices to cheat on the hospital.

Prof. Frimpong-Boateng was of the view that if business partners transact genuine business with the hospital, expenditure will reduce greatly through which the hospital can offer the best of services to clients (patients).

He said Korle Bu is still the best and biggest health provider in the country and it is important that things are improved.

He assured the public that the initiatives do not mean increase in cost to patients "but rather patients will pay less for the best of services".

Prof. Frimpong-Boateng said management wants to improve upon sanitation of the hospital's environs as well as improve upon accommodation for staff and patients alike.

He said in all these, the hospital will be relying on its personnel to do the work as part of measures to check high cost of expenditure.

He said the hospital has acquired block and slab making machines for the Maintenance Unit of the hospital to enable them do most of the job.

The Chief Executive cited for instance that while a contractor demanded 100 million cedis for the laying of slabs on the car park of the hospital's Laboratory Complex, staff of the hospital did the job at cost of 20 million cedis.

He said the hospital also through the efforts of the Maintenance Unit provided 16,000 slabs to the University of Ghana Medical School to lay its car park.

Prof. Frimpong-Boateng said these initiatives require the support of "Let us, therefore, view this conference as a challenge to us as a people and a nation, that together we could build this nation from our own resources," he stated, stressing, "remember your health is your wealth".