KATH closes Accident and Emergency Centre to the public for 24 hours

The Management of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) has announced that its Accident and Emergency Centre is full and overflowing with waiting patients.

The hospital is, therefore, not in a position to admit new emergency cases for the next 24 hours.

It has, consequently, urged the public to make use of peripheral hospitals in the region until the situation at its Accident & Emergency (A&E) Centre improves in a day or two.

In a statement signed by the Head of its Public Affairs Unit, Mr. Kwame Frimpong, and released in Kumasi on June 2, the hospital noted that the A&E Centre, which was originally designed as a 37-bed facility currently has 61 patients on admission at its Orange, Yellow and Red critical wards with 34 others in a queue waiting for their turn.

The statement said in order not to unduly endanger the lives of critically ill-patients, the hospital has deemed it appropriate to temporary curtail further admissions so that the backlog of cases could be attended to in the next 24 hours before new ones could be admitted.

It said the Management of the hospital is engaging the leadership of the Ashanti Regional Health Directorate to see how other hospitals in the region could be made to hold the fort pending improvement in the situation at the A&E Centre of the hospital.

“The current situation is being periodically reviewed as our emergency physician specialists and other medical staff are doing their best to manage the surge in cases at the centre and new admissions will be allowed as soon as things get under control”, the statement concluded.