Shut down Korle-bu for total overhaul - Prof Aheto

Ghana's major referral hospital must be shut down for two years to allow for its total overhaul, Professor Koblah Aheto, a former Dean of the Legon Business School, has suggested on The Boardroom hosted by Capt Budu Koomson on Class91.3fm.

"Let's close down Korle-Bu Hospital for two years, we are dying with them, we are dying without them. Let's close it down for two years, let's do the necessary studies, let's do the necessary restructuring, [then] let's open it. Like our good Lord did – destroyed the whole world and He rebuilt it," the former Deputy Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) said.

Prof Aheto also suggests a major forensic audit of workers at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital be done, as well as an overhaul of the administrative structures, as part of measures to halt the perennial hounding out of the referral hospital’s CEOs by staff.

The CEO of PSYCON also said he does not understand the constant agitations of staff at the nation's premier hospital for the removal of its Chief Executives, adding that such action makes it difficult for strategic planning and running of the facility.

"With one year for every board, one-and-a-half years for every CEO, how can a strategy work? A strategy is part of a long-term plan that must be implemented by successive CEOs and boards, but even before the boards come in place, before the CEO is appointed, there's agitation to remove him…so how can anyone of those people have peace of mind to implement anything?" he wondered.

Senior staff of the hospital passed a vote of no confidence in the current Chief Executive and Board Chairman on Wednesday December 9, 2015. They called on authorities to kick out Dr Gilbert Buckle and Dr Anthony Mawuli Sallah, respectively, for allegedly mismanaging the health facility.

The two were appointed in July 2014, following staff agitation against then acting CEO, Rev. Albert Okpoti Botwe, and then Board Chair, Eddie Annan, over similar concerns.

Three surgical wards of the hospital were recently shut down for maintenance purposes.