NO BED SYNDROME VS NO AMBULANCE SYNDROME

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It is life’s change agent.

I quite remember, when I was young, my grandfather was very ill. The sickness was so severe that sometimes he calls death to come and take him away.

Surprisingly, anytime he was attacked by the deadly sickness called asthma, he asks death, oh death are you going to take me away from my children and grandchildren?

Death indeed has taken our loved ones from us. Death destroyed good friendships that we had and make us feel lonely and desperate. Our wives and husbands have suffered in the hands of death. Death makes some men become drunkards. It makes women become widows and men become widowers just like our former vice president’s wife became a widow.

It is true that death is painful but it is more painful if it involves a prominent personality with much to offer this country.

We were in this country where a 70 year old has to die because there was no bed in the seven hospitals they have visited.

Now, the health authorities have launched an investigations into reports that 70 year old man died in his car after being turned away by seven hospitals due to lack of beds. So even if there are no beds in those hospitals, the doctors cannot treat somebody’s father, wife and uncle? Do the health practitioners hold some grudge against this old man that was not ready to die at that moment?

To those doctors and nurses of the seven hospitals, will you rejoice if that was to be your father? Was it true that there was no bed? Was it planned by those seven hospitals or it was a coincident? 

Is that what we get as profit after investing in you doctors to save lives in this country? The former government scrapped your allowances and you voted against him. The new government heard your cries and brought back your allowance. But these same doctors cannot sacrifice their lives to save a patient at the point of death? What do we get back by paying you with our tax payers money?

Last year May 4 2017 Ghana Oil Company Limited (GOIL) has presented thousand (1,000) hospital beds to the Ministry of Health (MoH) for distribution to the various regional hospitals in the country.

The company has also put in place mechanism to ensure that the Greater Accra and Ashanti regions receive 150 beds each, while the Eastern, Volta, Brong Ahafo, Western and Northern regions get 100 each.

How was the beds used or distributed in the Greater Accra region? Is it that those seven hospitals including LEKMA hospital in Accra couldn’t get any of the beds?

In hospitals, there are beds for emergency cases. Those beds are reserved and not touched unless there is an emergency. Is there no emergency beds at those hospitals or the doctors just felt not wanting to treat the patience?

You cannot do this at private hospitals. You will be handed over an envelope which means you are fired. The private hospitals are performing marvelously than the government hospitals. Because they are aware they can be sacked for non-productivity. If a patient dies as a result of a doctor’s negligence, you will be fired.

At private hospitals or clinics, they treat you immediately when you reach there.
What could be said about the government hospitals? You will see nurses in groups gossiping. They do not care whether you are dying or living.

Especially in this moment of National Health and Insurance Scheme (NHIS), you are dead living being if you there hold that card to the government hospitals.

Sometimes I ask myself that what is the relevant of the NHIS. In some cases, if you hold that card, the only medicine you could get is paracetamol. What is the usefulness of paracetamol? I do not even take it if am sick. Will it not be good if we abolish the NHIS?

I will like to hold my breath and move on to the ambulance case.
On the other hand, on 29th of June, 2018, Ghana was hit once again with sad news of the demise of our former vice-president Kwesi Amissah-Arthur. A lot of us were shocked when we heard the news. We did not hear his illness and how come he is dying? That was how Ghanaians were thinking.

A lot of tributes started flowing on the air waves of the country. A lot were saying he is calm and humble. It is at this point that we will see his lovers but not when he was alive. We love the dead than the living.

After the death of our beloved, calm and humble former vice-president, the Okyenhene Ofori Panin II has said that the former vice-president died as a result of know ambulance available to transport him to the hospital.

The former vice-president was transferred to the hospital in the back of a pick-up. What a shame to this country? Our beloved former vice-president was thrown into a pick-up to the hospital because there was no ambulance available.

According to a report by Ghanaweb.com in May, 29 million Ghanaians share 55 ambulances. The country can only boast of 55 ambulances out of a total of 155. 100 of the remaining have broken down due to various faults.

Had it not being the demise of our former vice-president, we will not raise consent on this topic. We joke too much in this country.
We have ambulance service stations in this country without ambulance and we sit down and fold our arms. Who should repair the broken ambulances for us? If we do not stop politics in this country and face the reality, this country will be in total mess.

We will continue to have hospitals without beds and ambulance stations without ambulances. Rest in peace Kwesi Amissah-Arthur.

BY BRIGHT AFAVI SELASE