Consider setting up Special Care Baby Unit to improve neonatal care - Dr Ngyedu

Dr. Eric Kofi Ngyedu, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital (CCTH), has appealed to the Ghana Health Service (GHS) to consider establishing special care baby units in the communities.

He said this would offload some of the neonatal intensive care cases referred to the hospital.

The Teaching Hospital which recorded 185 neonatal mortalities last year, also needed an ultra-modern Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) to help improve the ability of medical officers and nurses to manage and provide comprehensive maternal and neonatal services to the wide range of clients in fulfillment of the hospital’s vision.

Dr. Ngyedu made the call at the 2022 Annual Performance Review meeting of CCTH in Cape Coast on the theme: “Enhancing efficiency and resilience of the system for effective service delivery”.

The meeting was to seek input and expertise to improve its systems for efficient and resilient health service delivery.

Dr. Ngyedu said interventions such as improvement in the availability of blood and blood-related products, and supply of some critical medical equipment and devices among others, were in place to mitigate issues, but the hospital still lacked a standard neonatal intensive care to manage all the critical neonatal cases.

He revealed that though the hospital recorded a slight reduction in mortalities from 11 percent to 8.5 percent in 2021 and 2022 respectively, 39 expectant mothers lost their lives last year.

The CEO described the situation as unacceptable and revealed that management was working assiduously to implement more stringent interventions to reduce the menace.

The total of outpatient department (OPD) visits increased to 170,441 from 152,3642 with a daily average of 467.

He said the hospital would continue to mainstream quality of care, infection prevention, and occupational health and safety into all its activities as enshrined in the national quality strategy.

Dr. Ngedu expressed gratitude to the government for the tremendous support in improving the infrastructure and equipment base of the hospital, which included the supply and installation of a new CT scan machine, ultramodern machines, and other assorted equipment.

He acknowledged the improvement in payment of claims by the National Health Insurance Authority in recent years.

CCTH as a growing Teaching Hospital, he indicated, was ready to explore prudent measures to better its performance to meet the expectation of the thousands of people it served, improve relationships with its patients and strive to reduce the waiting time for those who seek their services.

Touching on some key challenges, the CEO said there was high institutional maternal mortality and neonatal deaths, absence of neonatal intensive care, and expansion of infrastructure, especially accident and Emergency center, and Oncology center, among others.

He explained that the Board and Management were poised to address the challenges and would continue to aggressively pursue strategies in fulfillment of its mandate and bring mitigation to the challenges enumerated.

The management used the platform to launch its 25th-anniversary celebration of quality service delivery in the Region and Ghana as a whole.

Some legacy projects it hoped to establish include Infectious Disease Centre, Patients' Relatives Hostel, NICU Complex, Eye Centre, Trauma Centre, Oncology Centre, and Reproductive Endocrinology & Fertility center.

He noted that planned activities to be rolled throughout the celebration were fundraising, donations to Special Homes, anniversary Lectures, Open Day, and Press Soiree.

Others include fun games, specialist Outreach Services, Health Walks, Clean-Up Campaigns, Blood Donation Campaigns, Grand Durbar, Dinners, Awards, and Thanksgiving Night.