Instil discipline in subordinates - urges KATH CEO

Kumasi, Oct. 7, GNA - The administrative head of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) has appealed to heads of directorates and unit managers of the hospital to discharge their duties diligently by instilling discipline in those they supervise to improve output and ensure better service delivery to patients. Prof Ohene Adjei, Acting Chief Executive of KATH, said even though there would be no room for either harassment or witch-hunting on political, ethnic or religious grounds, management would not be tolerant of indiscipline, laxity and ineptitude.

The facility, he noted, would "never move to the next level" with poor work culture. Prof Ohene, addressing the opening ceremony of the 2009 mid-year performance review meeting of the hospital in Kumasi on Tuesday, assured the staff of rewards for good performance and warned of severe sanctions for erring and non-performing staff. The meeting was aimed at taking stock of the performance in the last six months to help device new and appropriate strategies to improve service delivery.

Prof Ohene Adjei said the major vision of his administration was to create an atmosphere which would make KATH a health centre that provides quality health care to the community. He said though the hospital had seen some significant improvements in the spread and quality of facilities and also boasts of some of the best medical brains in the country, these would not result in better service for patients if the attitude of staff to duty was lukewarm and apathetic.

Prof Ohene Adjei said with the increasing complexity and enormity in health care delivery, coupled with the advent of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), which was exerting tremendous pressure on service delivery, there was the need to draw up effective strategies to respond to the emerging challenges by improving efficiency through waste reduction and productivity enhancement. "Our patients deserve better services than what they are getting now and I will like to entreat all of you to device and implement appropriate measures to make patients experience at your various units and directorates a better one. It is what we do and not what we are called that counts", he told the meeting.