I bring to the notice of the Ministry of Health and all stakeholders in healthcare delivery in Ghana about the unfortunate death of a woman that recently occurred due to system failure at the Tema General Hospital.

This came to my notice when we asked that a four day old baby we had operated on be breastfed. We were told the mother died after delivery from excessive bleeding, a condition called Post-Partum Haemorrhage. Upon further enquiries about the circumstances, it was revealed to me that the mother started bleeding after delivery at a maternity home at Afienya. She was then rushed to the Tema General Hospital.

Unfortunately, on reaching the hospital at about 7:00p.m that day, they were told there was no doctor on duty, and that they should find another hospital elsewhere. They, therefore, decided to continue to the 37 Military Hospital.

Sadly, the woman was pronounced dead shortly after reaching the 37 Military Hospital. This, indeed, saddened me and I decided to find out why a hospital like Tema General Hospital should not have a doctor on duty. During my enquiries, I was told the hospital has not been offering emergency services for about three months now due to acute shortage of doctors.

I was also informed that the issue had even been reported in the media before. One would therefore want to ask whether any efforts are being made to solve the problem that led to the acute shortage of doctors at the Tema General Hospital.

Dear Health Minister, I would be grateful if you could use your noble office to help solve the problem, if it is still pending, in order to avoid any such maternal mortality in the future. Indeed, the aim of reducing maternal mortality could be achieved only when all avoidable militating institutional and community factors such as what is happening at Tema General Hospital, the lack of hospital equipments and bad roads are addressed