Our health and the situation

Apart from daily complaints, no one’s health is soundest. This basically is not more than enough to be anxious, whether we are rich or poor. The Latin phraseology, “mens sana in copore sano”–a sound mind in a healthy body’, puts it aptly. Our anxieties to reach out for that and in almost any means to arrive there at the hospital, intensely dislikes impedi­ments. And when we get there, we want instant priority attention, irre­spective of the queue. We protest and the first who receive our verbal stinks are the nurses. That basically that group are a constant in all complaints. It dates from the terms of Florence Nightingale through Mother Theresa to date. The indictment against Nurses into making them notorious has be­come a norm today. I don’t intend to examine it in this piece. They are cited but not centrally rather as a critical element in a discourse about the status of our health Ser­vice as the country rebuilds.

In previous articles, I had em­phasised health with education and agriculture as top of priority jobs on hand. No one will readily deny. Health is in the greater has greater turmoil than the others because [i] we take it for granted; (ii) resort to beliefs of all sorts; and fail to differentiate between healing and curative medication. It is some­thing that makes no distinction for the highly educated and essentially “kwataa” and unfortunately un-read.

On top of these, not discounting poverty, listening to and looking in from the outside, one is left to add up myriads of complaints against deliveries from our health service. I am taking a sceptic’s attitude to venture here. There are too many variations on same general public displeasures about the state of health service today. From the start, the general status quo does show the service in shambles However, its situation, aggregating the disapproving remarks total a conclusive unsatisfactory. Public disaffection which fled into atten­dance-apathy had in the 60s-70s increased to a common saying as “I won’t go to X government hospital’’ or “don’t take me to YY public hospital; because you are taking me to die”.

The preference was to die at home rather. It is a decrying that surged the few years before the country went to the polls (Decem­ber 7, 2024). The current fashion­able talk runs parallel. The present change- expectancy is visibly a yearning for a new and vigorous momentum at all levels of health deliveries. But a shifting louder frustrations list an entire gamut of short-falls. Briefly, here are the mix including with the lacks, which marks emphasizes more about the reliability, promptness, closer meticulousness given by the entire chain in the system. You will hear the indictment recited: lack of real order, leading to vacuumed- su­pervision, sloppy nurses, alleged sleezy-labs, poorly audited stores and reportedly-human-made emp­ty dispensaries, as if there is no administration, scarcity of movable ambulances, broken down equip­ment, shutting down surgical fa­cilities and chaotic mortuaries like our public cemeteries, a joint job for the Church local and Metropol­itan Assemblies but so orphaned and disorderly, un acceptable and equally disturbing.

I shall undertake to sample some specifics, lodge the case against to offer mitigating factors for the differences to explain themselves away. From the early 90s I had known the Ministry of Health, it is one that never seeks to give alibis for excuses for public-found defaults, apart from the ‘’Covid- 19’s huu-haa’’ and the prior past governmental initial hesitancy on cholera—and the repeated unexplained shilly-shallying over COVID-19. Nurses: There is no Florence Nightingale left any­where, painful to acknowledge, let alone Mother Theresa is ascend­ed. The particular matter about today’s nurses is or would seem to have been the impacts of relax­ation of entry’s unsavoury reports about corruption and the code of conduct. All are heritages of the historic outcomes of the exodus to Nigeria, London and the US. The reason was hardship as latterly occurred in this country.

Concerning that phenomenon, the former Chief Justice, Sophia Akufo, made headlines with her personal distress in remarks that she saw no hope in the thinking of the Youth whose only intent was to leave the country, expect­ing reliefs outside. (The private comment was “We train them for elsewhere” as long they can jump. Other professions endured the same simultaneously. I wrote re­marks including a call, suggestively to craft regulations or tighten the barricades in a manner that shall be fair to the individuals and coun­try). At home, there is a case for and create environment conducive to entice staying on; encourage the pursuit of specialisation, minding standards. That is if we are able to restore and insist on professional conduct laced with human care— courtesy.

The latter is a constant displea­sure of patients. The array of Medical Doctors and Specialists fall into three categories, according to public opinion—the fully dedi­cated: these are rare, outnumbered by the teeming GPs which can be divided into three groups—trial and error; “I am only here for beer” and a tiny-winy meticulous who would make every patient happy and the Specialists from consultants down to who is always available and keeps appointments. I discard the “shika agbo, agbo”-‘too expensive’ fees at alternate clinics in the variety of very well skilled within the profession.

The fees are not aligned. They can’t be. While the difference between state hospitals and private medical centres, the charges de­pend on the level of same ailment. This is where the criticism is not justifiable. But it is a gap to ar­range to shorten gradually hoping to bridge the moat between we who can afford patients unable through delicate negotiation. The new Minister for Health would have to think about shortage of nurs­es outcomes and not attract hoards of staffs from the State. It has happened once before, stripped State sector bare and the erosion don’t seem to have subsided. In our story after independence, there were several shortages of key Professionals for health.

Accepting the argument for pay, the better reasons were tools and the population boom; and there­fore too much work for the few. India, Pakistan Cuba loaned Ghana strategic personnel. The scheme ditched. Only a couple stayed behind—prominent to pay to them thanks tribute, if posthumous­ly, were Doctors Chowdry and Samara Singh. (I served with both on the Accra Psychiatric Hospital’s Board—Rawlings term. The ex­perience I acquired, was how vain life is and how to die for others). Our renowned Medical School was ultimately born out of that crisis which bedevils our supply and need equation. But support services are, or being added on.

The one place one meets daily with rehabilitations and half works done is the State Hospital right down to infirmaries. ‘’Who is and where is the Contractor”?. It is answered in swerves—allegations are commonest in the narratives in a widening deficit due to absence of clear ‘’who does what’’ which promotes regular deficiencies and territorial fights. But there are Standing and Operational Orders. The first responsible person you confronted may not remember the latest recent time s/he read the Directives. The culprit is pressure. It is true. An old English Sailor’s drunkard ballad runs: “what shall we do with the drunken Sailor’’ early in the morning. It seems the Health Service is “drunken” with pressure every day. The provi­sion to make it admirable can be captured in “AGA MELEO”— there is no money, plain fact also because state of modern art of delivery has shortest life spans; and a sad needlessness to talk about in a scrounging economy.

Another salient item in search of resolving our health issues: Sitting at the top of public health is the rate of disease rises is synonymous with environmental problems. Faced with prioritising among the topmost, choosing the lead is a sphinx; but it’s got to be the em­phasis for a culture of sanitation, kept by compulsorily enforcements at law—no holds barred. (The contrast of cleanness between the rurals and urbans remain sta­dia-yawns. Unfortunately, adjacent to urban health centre is a sem­blance of near-chronic shortages of mere first aid drugs. Regional Stores may show fair distribution documents. But the said known is that the drugs find their ways to a local Chemist soonest. The Minis­try has an elaborate Inspectorate. I used to know that truth.

To be brief, there is a tall order both administratively and purely medical to be put right to stop business as usual in our hospitals where the norm is creating new de­partments. I hate to infer to state that greater issues of efficiency at this nation’s Broadcaster, the GBC rests in a faux pas scramble for Directorates—a bad rush whose dividends snore at the bottom of any alarms that have stalked that Institution, post-coup 1966. It seems it was driven principally out of rather apparent feeling of opportune-ambition than bud­getary maths considerations in then circumstances. As regards the imperatives of –the Ministry, professionals, administration and deliveries, drawing attention from the outside should be sufficient without an iota of pretence to dare dictate policy. ‘’Mangana yakari’’—‘job done’

By  Prof nana essilfie-conduah.

The post Our health and the situation appeared first on Ghanaian Times.

Read Full Story