Emergency Medicine Residents at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) have responded sharply to the hospital management’s recent statements regarding the surge in patient admissions, emphasizing that the crisis reflects systemic failures rather than isolated institutional issues.
In a press release issued Monday, the residents stressed that video footage showing patients treated on the floor during surges is “authentic” and not a result of media exaggeration. “When the surge in patients exhausted all available beds, chairs were provided. When those chairs were also exhausted, patients had no option but to receive care on the floor,” the statement said.
The residents criticized KBTH management’s focus on the procurement of 200 beds, arguing that such measures alone cannot address the crisis. “Beds without functional oxygen points, airway equipment, monitoring tools, adequate floor space, and sufficient nursing and physician staffing ratios do not improve care. They congest an already overwhelmed space,” the statement noted.
Highlighting broader national challenges, the residents described the situation as a “symptom of a fractured national emergency response system,” citing dysfunctional referral pathways, absent pre-hospital coordination, and the lack of a real-time national bed-tracking system.
The statement concluded with a call for systemic reform: “We do not call for more beds in hallways. We call for a strengthened national healthcare grid… The crisis is real. And the response must be equally real.”
The residents urged both KBTH management and the Ministry of Health to move beyond PR-focused responses and commit to transparent, systemic solutions to the emergency care challenges facing Ghana.
