KATH to establish emergency nursing college

Story: George Ernest Asare, Kumasi
March 12, 2008

An emergency nursing training college is to be established at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) by the end of June this year to produce specialist nurses to enhance the management of accident victims and other disaster-related cases.
The Chief Executive of the hospital, Dr Anthony Nsiah-Asare, who announced this at the annual performance review of the hospital in Kumasi, said specialist attention was critical for the effective management of accident victims.
He, therefore, expressed the hope that with the establishment of the college, KATH would score another first in health delivery in the country.
Dr Nsiah-Asare also stated that the hospital was collaborating with the Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons (GCPS) to start the training of Emergency Medicine and Critical Care Physicians by the end of this year.
This will be part of the KATH’s vision of making the hospital a leading medical tourist destination in the West African sub-region within the shortest possible time.
Also collaborating with the KATH authorities to establish a Cardiothoracic Centre at the KATH early next year to cater for patients with cardiovascular diseases in the northern sector of Ghana and its environs, were specialists from the Boston Children’s Hospital of the Harvard University in the United States of America.
Already, a Research and Development Unit (R&D) has been established at KATH to initiate and co-ordinate research activities at the hospital to enable them to fully address all challenges that may confront the teaching hospital in future in its quest to become a medical tourist centre of international repute.
The R&D unit will also focus on addressing the challenges in scientific and technological advances in health care to enhance efficiency in providing healthcare services to patients.
Dr Nsiah-Asare said plans were far advanced to make the KATH a centre of excellence of international repute.
The chief executive indicated that the next strategy of turning things around to make KATH a medical tourists centre to create wealth while providing quality health care to its clients would kick off early next year.
He said already, the Boston Children’s Hospital was arranging with one of their collaborating institutions in India to build the capacity of the staff of KATH “to enable us fully to man the cardio centre when it is eventually set up”.
“Given the rate of infrastructure and human resource development at the hospital it is our belief that the hospital can position itself to take advantage of the growing medical tourism market,” he stressed.
He gave the assurance that funds for the construction of a Urology, Eye, Plastic Reconstructive Surgery, Paediatric Cardiothoracic and Cardiothoracic Centres, were seriously being sought.
That, he said, would “ensure that the medical tourism dream is realised so that together with the Accident and Emergency Centre, they could be used to stimulate the inflows of medical tourists”.
“By this, the hospital will be helping to create direct wealth through health by generating foreign exchange through the provision of world-class specialist services at the specific centres,” he said.
Dr Nsiah-Asare said as part of their preparations towards the establishment of the Paediatric Cardiothoracic and Cardio Centre at KATH, the management would host the Boston Children’s Hospital of the Harvard University for the second consecutive time in two years to perform free open heart surgery next month.
Specialists from the Boston Children’s Hospital were at KATH in October last year to perform the first free open heart surgeries for selected patients.
Dr Nsiah Asare further gave the assurance that his administration would continue “to maintain its position as a dominant provider of specialist healthcare services by investing heavily in its human resource capital base, strengthening the research and development unit, expanding the range of services and continuing the aggressive infrastructure development programmes”.
“It has always been the conviction of the management that well-trained personnel and not necessarily equipment and infrastructure, is what is most critical to the provision of quality healthcare services,” he explained, adding that “no expense has, therefore, been sparred in providing short and long-term opportunities for both clinical and non-clinical staff.”