The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has urged the government to adequately resource teaching hospitals with the medical equipment required to improve healthcare delivery across the country.
The Committee identified inadequate funding, insufficient medical equipment, poor maintenance, weak technical capacity and prolonged equipment downtime as the major challenges affecting service delivery in the nation’s teaching hospitals.
The recommendation follows the committee’s consideration of the Auditor-General’s performance audit, which examined the systems for planning, procuring and maintaining medical equipment to ensure its continuous availability in teaching hospitals.
The audit covered the period from 2018 to 2023 and assessed the operations of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Tamale Teaching Hospital and other teaching hospitals nationwide.
Presenting the Committee’s report in Parliament yesterday, the chairperson of the PAC, Mrs Abena Osei-Asare, expressed concern over the absence of critical medical facilities, including a cardiac catheterisation laboratory at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.
She said the lack of the facility had contributed to the deaths of patients requiring urgent cardiac intervention, as many had to be transferred to Accra for treatment.
“Mr Speaker, the hospitals generally conducted assessments of their medical equipment and incorporated their needs into procurement plans. The problem, therefore, was not the identification of the need,” Mrs Osei-Asare said.
“The deeper problem was inadequate funding, insufficient equipment, maintenance failures, weak technical capacity and prolonged equipment downtime,” she added.
The committee, therefore, recommended that the Ministry of Health prioritise the procurement of specialised medical equipment and facilities for teaching hospitals.
It also urged the Ministry to collaborate with the Ministry of Finance and the Ghana Medical Trust Fund to mobilise the funding required to procure the needed equipment.
Mrs Osei-Asare further disclosed that the audit revealed biomedical engineers in the teaching hospitals lacked the specialised training required to repair and maintain sophisticated medical equipment.
She noted that in some hospitals, engineers had to outsource repairs that could have been undertaken internally if properly equipped workshops were available.
She, therefore, called for a coordinated national retooling programme for teaching hospitals to strengthen their capacity and improve healthcare delivery.
“A non-functional medical machine is not merely an idle public asset. It may mean a delayed diagnosis, a lost source of hospital revenue or a loss of life,” Mrs Osei-Asare said.
BY BENJAMIN ARCTON-TETTEY
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