KATH TO BAN CELLPHONE IN THEATRES (PAGE 29)

STORY: George Ernest Asare, Kumasi

Authorities at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi have decided to ban the use of cellphones in the theatres to enhance efficiency and quality delivery of medical services.
The ban will take effect from June 1, 2008, and any medical officer who flouts the regulation would be severely sanctioned.
According to the Chief Executive of the KATH, Dr Anthony Nsiah Asare, the use of cellphones at the hospital not only affects the monitors at the theatres, but also undermines quality delivery of service.
Announcing the ban during a seminar organised for selected nurse anaesthetists and other medical staff in the country, Dr Nsiah Asare pointed out that the time had come for medical officers to be conscious of the needs of their patients at all times.
He explained that with the introduction of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), the activities of medical officers were being scrutinised continuously by the patients and managers of the insurance scheme “and so any form of inefficiency on your part would not only land you in court but would also cause your name to be deleted from our register, so take notice of the directive and abide by it”, he advised.
The seminar was meant to build the capacity of the nurse anaesthetists in the country to enable them to handle trauma and emergency cases efficiently and effectively.
This is to reduce the mortality rate associated with such cases.
The KATH organised the workshop in collaboration with a team of medical officers from the University of Utah in the United States of America (USA).
The seminar, which was instituted four years ago, is also meant to refresh and update the knowledge of practising nurse anaesthetists and physician anaesthetists throughout the country.
It is further meant to build their capacity more effectively to enable them to provide safe anaesthesia to patients and also train other health providers in basic life support during emergencies.
Dr Nsiah Asare expressed concern about the rate of death associated with road traffic injuries in the country and said it was indeed important to train more people to handle accident victims efficiently to reduce the death rate among road traffic accident victims.
He explained that because of the poor handling of accident victims, as many as 80 per cent of people, including politicians, medical officers, students, priests, farmers and journalists died on the spot while 14 per cent died at the theatre during emergency services.
He said research had also shown that only six per cent of accident victims survived.
He added that as part of the measures to reduce the number of deaths among accident victims, the KATH authorities were initiating policies and programmes that would greatly enhance quality delivery of services and efficient handling of accident victims from the accident scenes.
He said further that measures were also being taken to ensure that only well-trained people handled accident victims.
He said as part of the measures, the KATH was agitating for a law to be passed to ensure that only well-trained people handled accident cases.
The Accident Emergency Centre at the KATH which is under construction will be opened by July 1, 2008 to cater for trauma-related and emergency cases.
Dr Nsiah Asare says the Accident Emergency Centre is a complex unit, which would need a lot of critical care nurses, and that the KATH authorities were collaborating with their Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) counterparts to train more nurses capable of providing quality heath care delivery at the centre.
The KATH is also collaborating with the leadership of the Ghana Private Road Transport Unit (GPRTU) to train its members to handle accident victims properly to reduce the death rate, which outnumbers HIV and AIDS cases in the country.
In a welcoming address, the Head of the Directorate of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care Unit at the KATH, Dr Gabriel Boakye, said the KATH was determined to build the capacity of the participants in modern anaesthesia techniques to markedly improve the safety of surgery.