La hospital rejects claims of poor service

Some residents in and around the South La Estates and others who previously patronized the La General Hospital have sworn never to seek medical attention at the former polyclinic again.

Expressing very strong positions and defending their decision, some residents within a stone throw distance from the hospital say the La General Hospital is nothing but a death trap.

The hospital management however disagrees, insisting that they are the only ones currently running a 24-hour service.

“All the other hospitals close by 8pm. We are the only center that is effectively operating the National Health Insurance Scheme. We also have a good stand-by generator which provides us power anytime lights are out. We don’t refer any patient to other facilities. We try to take care of all our patients at the hospital” argues Dr. Patrick Frempong, Medical Superintendent in charge.

But the residents will have none of that. Apart from the generally poor sanitary conditions surrounding the hospital, they maintain that the attitude of the health workers particularly the nurses at the hospital is appalling.

Retired Army Captain Vitus Amenyedor is an opinion leader in the South La community and lives directly opposite the hospital.

“It was changed from clinic to hospital with fanfare. Some of us were wondering what was happening but they went and brought the Wulomei and others here to make noise that it was changed from clinic to hospital. So we thought there will be a change as far as the services they provide are concerned. But unfortunately, things have gone from bad to worse” he told this paper.

Narrating his personal experiences to the dailyEXPRESS, Captain (Rtd) Amenyedor said, “my own child had convulsion; we took the child to the place and they told us they could not offer us any service, so we should take the child away. We rushed the child to the Police Hospital for treatment.”

Giving further examples, Capt. Amenyedor narrated how an accident victim was ignored by the nurses at the hospital. “There was an accident at the junction here at the early part of last year and a boy had a deep cut on the forehead. This boy was rushed to this hospital, he was there and they refused to offer service to the boy. My wife and another woman here, they never knew the boy from anywhere but they went for the boy, put him in a taxi and sent him to another hospital”.

But the incident which Capt. Amenyedor says finally broke his heart was his sister’s experience. “One morning I was lying here; my cousin who lives in La was rushed to the hospital and she was lying and groaning in pain. I went to her and all I could hear was the woman lying there crying, groaning and the nurse on duty was shouting and rebuking her for not coming to the hospital on time. And all that time she was rebuking, the woman was in pain, there was no attempt whatsoever to help the woman. So I asked her wouldn’t it be better if she offers the woman service first and when he regains health then she could advice or educate her? Then she reluctantly went to take the woman’s BP and a few other things and came back to tell me that she would not give her emergency service and I should do whatever I want. So I got angry and went to the doctor on duty to report the condition of the patient to him before I was asked to bring her for treatment.”

Dr. Frempong in his reaction appealed to patients and their relatives who are not satisfied with any service at the hospital to report to the management for action to be taken. “I can’t sit in my office and know what is going on in every department of the hospital” he explained.

“We are doing our best under the circumstances. I can tell you that even the residents who claim they will not come to the hospital are there now. You can go there and ask of them where they are coming from, and you will know what I am talking about” he told the paper.

Capt. Amenyedor experiences are however similar to many others, and a number of patients returning from the hospital and interviewed at the gates told the dailyEXPRESS similar stories.

“I was sitting here and there was an accident involving my nephew. He was coming to visit us on motorbike and was knocked down by a car. When he was rushed to the hospital, nobody bothered to help him. Someone came to inform us that a boy in the hospital mentioned that he was coming to visit us and got involved in the accident. When we got there, the nurses on duty had refused to attend to him; so we charged and protested against the hospital officials” was the account of another resident.

A middle aged man further told the dailyEXPRESS that many people have died at the La hospital because of poor services.

“We are here and we hear people crying every night insulting the hospital authorities for killing their relatives. This hospital is more like a death trap. We don’t know what exactly it stands for. Just go there in the evening and you’ll have the best picture. People sit there from morning to night without any treatment.”

Dr. Frempong however told the dailyEXPRESS in an extensive interview to react to the concerns that, while it is possible that one or two of the patients might have suffered from the frustrations and despair of a few of the nurses as a result of the pressure, “it is better for the patients to report such instances to us first in order for the wrong to be corrected.”

“My nurses and the other doctors are currently complaining because of the pressure” he lamented, adding that “they are saying they are tired. They say why is it that they are all health workers but people keep coming from other hospitals because they are told to come here? When the transition was done, we started with operations with the existing 70-beds, 5 General Practitioners, 5 Medical Assistants, 3 Specialists, and about 200 nurses. At the time, we were seeing about 300 patients but now we are taking care of over 600 patients a day. All other facilities refer their patients to us including Korlebu.”

A worker at the hospital confirmed to this paper that they have serious problems with worker attitude, especially on the part of the nurses.

“One angry man one day announced that we built a new mortuary because of the volume of people we kill, but off course that is not true. We are not here to kill. Unfortunately, some people will die, but it is also true that our nurses and some of the health workers have very bad attitudinal problems that are not at all good for this kind of work” said the hospital staff.

Dr. Frempong on his part said it is unthinkable for people to posit that they only kill people.

“People keep their patients in the house for so long before they bring them here. When they come, we try to do our best to save the situation. But some come here to abandon their relatives especially the aged ones until they die before they troop to the hospital to claim the body. So it cannot be the case that we deliberately kill people here. That cannot be true.”

The La General Hospital was upgraded from its polyclinic status in 2004 and is supposed to provide a 24-hour service that will better serve the community.

Dr. Frempong under whose influence the transition from Polyclinic to hospital status was done says the La general hospital is at the moment one of the best centers in Accra if not the whole country. He however appealed to government to assist the hospital to expand its infrastructure in order to take care of the numbers.

“We need about less than 40 doctors, 400 nurses, and we need more beds, and infrastructure. We are doing our best with the little facilities we have now. I appeal to government assist us.”