The Chief Executive Officer of Korle Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH), Dr. Opoku Ware Ampomah, has refuted allegations that a malfunctioning elevator in the hospital’s Surgical Department was repaired specifically due to a visit from Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, the ranking Member of Parliament’s Health Committee.
Dr. Ampomah clarified in an interview with Citi News’ Eno Sarfo on Tuesday, September 3, that the repair was part of a pre-planned maintenance schedule, which had been arranged before the MP’s visit.
He said the timing of the repair was purely coincidental, stating, “What happened was a mere coincidence.”
He firmly rejected the notion that the hospital acted in response to external pressure, underscoring that their maintenance plans were already in motion.
“This is something that we are even doing and even for the surgical block specifically the head of the department had written to me and all the approvals had been given for the procurement process to get them a new lift, but the fact is that the lifts are not the ordinary type of lifts that are easy to get.
“These are lifts that have to be big enough to take up the hospital bed with some people standing around it. So, these have to be custom-made. So even from the time of order to delivery, it takes a minimum of six months. So, we are still going through the process as we speak.”
“So, when this fault happened, we had to now take immediate measures to make sure that the lift was repaired. Unfortunately, it took much longer than we were expecting and so we had to then reorder our operations in the sense that we were still taking care of the emergencies, but we had to designate other wards and other theatres to take up the emergencies and then some of the urgent electives…So this was done over the last one week. So eventually the lifts were fixed on Sunday.”
“…On Sunday evening the gentleman who fixed the lift and who was monitoring thought that there was a particular sensor that he thought he should replace so he advised us not to use it on Monday morning till he replaced the sensor by 10, 11 a.m. Monday he had come to replace the sensor so normal work had resumed.”
“You think that if something couldn’t be fixed for a whole week and then because somebody came and said something and then suddenly it gets fixed. I mean that is not the fact. It doesn’t even make sense. I think that is just a pure coincidence,” he stated.
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