KATH's timely intervention saves baby's life

Kumasi, Sept. 22, GNA - The timely intervention by the Management of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) has helped to save the life a two-year-old baby girl. The hospital picked the bill for the toddler and a medical team to be air-lifted to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) for emergency surgery.

She had gone into distress after a grain of corn she was eating got stuck in her airway, resulting in severe respiratory difficulties. Doctors at the hospital put her on a ventilator, resuscitated and stabilize her before airlifting her to the KBTH last week Sunday for the emergency surgery.

Mr Kwabena Sanseh, the 30-year-old father of the baby girl from Derma in the Brong Ahafo region, told the Ghana News Agency in Kumasi that, there was no way his child would have survived without the kind and quick intervention by KATH authorities. "My baby was breathless and almost at the point of death but doctors at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) worked round the clock to revive her and accompanied her and my wife to Accra all at the expense of the hospital." Mr Sanseh said the baby-girl is now doing very well and had been discharged from the Korle-Bu. He expressed his deepest appreciation to the management and doctors of KATH for the medical attention and humanitarian support, without which, he would have lost his child.

Professor Ohene Adjei, Acting Chief Executive of KATH, told the GNA that, a medical team led by a doctor had to accompany the baby because she was in a life-threatening situation and had to be put on respiratory support and monitored throughout the flight.

The management of the hospital paid for the cost because it would have been too dangerous and risky to have conveyed her in an ambulance given her unstable condition, the nature of the Kumasi-Accra Highway and the time it would have taken to cover the distance. Professor Ohene Adjei commended the Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) and Anaesthesia units of KBTH for the efficient manner they dealt with the emergency.

He also thanked the National Ambulance Service (NAS) which provided an ambulance to convey the team from the Kotoka International Airport to the KBTH.

"The co-ordination between our medical team and that of the NAS and Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital was simply impressive and it is my hope that we will continue to collaborate in the years ahead to save lives", Professor Ohene Adjei noted.