Ghana is taking steps to improve emergency healthcare with plans to set up a national command centre that will help doctors direct patients to hospitals with available beds in real time.

The initiative aims to ease the chronic overcrowding at the country’s major referral facilities, including the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.

The plan was outlined by the hospital’s Board Chairman, Titus Beyuo, who is also the Member of Parliament for Lambussie.

Speaking on the Joy Super Morning Show on March 24, 2026, he said the command centre will form a key part of a broader emergency patient management system being developed to reduce pressure on hospitals.

“We need the ambulance service to relocate their call centre to this national command centre. We need to get physicians and other people at the command centre who will do an online sorting of patients and redirect them,” he explained.

Under the new system, ambulance teams will no longer automatically take patients to hospitals like Korle Bu or Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital without knowing if beds are available; instead, cases will be routed using real-time data, helping to prevent delays that can worsen outcomes for critically ill patients.

Beyuo added that for the system to work effectively nationwide, all 200-plus ambulances in Ghana must be connected to the platform, a process still underway.

The command centre is expected to bring a more rational distribution of cases across facilities, giving patients a better chance of timely care.

He credited the Minister of Health for driving the political and administrative support needed to push the project forward, calling the minister “very committed” to accelerating its implementation.

However, no specific timeline has been given for when the command centre will go live. Professor Beyuo cautioned that the complexity of coordinating personnel, training, communication networks, and multiple agencies makes it difficult to commit to a firm date.

Once operational, the centre could mark a major step toward addressing one of the country’s most persistent healthcare frustrations: patients being rushed to already overcrowded hospitals without visibility on bed availability elsewhere.

NA/VPO

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