The Board Chair of Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Titus Beyuo, has revealed that the hospital’s functional bed capacity has dwindled to approximately 1,500, citing broken and unreplaced beds as a major challenge.
His comments follow a viral video appearing to show patients lying on the floor at the hospital’s Accident and Emergency Centre, sparking widespread concern.
Hospital management initially stated they couldn’t verify the footage’s authenticity, maintaining patients were seated on chairs awaiting admission, not treated on the floor.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Yakubu Seidu Adam, dismissed claims of floor treatment.
Speaking on Channel One TV’s The Point of View, which was monitored by Ghanaianradar, Prof. Beyuo stressed the urgent need to boost bed capacity, countering some Emergency Medicine Residents’ claims that adding beds wouldn’t alleviate congestion.
“It’s a very unfortunate statement. We need more beds. No one can argue that we don’t need beds.
The World Health Organisation suggests we need two to five beds per 1,000 population. Ghana has about 0.9 beds per 1,000 population.
As of today, Korle Bu’s functional bed capacity is around 1,500. It has come down. Some beds have broken down and haven’t been replaced,” he said.Prof. Beyuo expressed confidence in the Health Minister, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh’s, ability to tackle the hospital’s challenges.
“I want to reassure the doctors that the Minister of Health has sufficient knowledge of the system, the commitment, and the political will to solve the problem,” he added
