The Management of the Effia Nkwanta Regional Hospital has called on the media to carefully follow up with the facility on public information shared with them by some aggrieved clients.
This would ensure that verified and accurate reports are generated on matters bothering clients and Hospital activities to ensure that wrong communications do not create image crisis for the Regional Hospital.
Dr.Joseph Tambil, the Effia Nkwanta Medical Director at a media engagement to seek for greater Hospital and media collaboration said, “our clients see you the media as the first port of call and that is why we entreat you to also get back to us and verify to put out not just a balanced story but one that ensures fairness to all parties involved”.
He said, the Hospital valued the media as an invaluable resource in the operations of the facility’s programmes and pleaded that such relationship was strengthened on the right pillars of accurate reportage and education even to the public.
The Medical Director later announced the progress of various infrastructure development within the Hospital to give it a face-lift.
He, however, noted that staff attrition was becoming a matter of concern to the facility which had already lost 40 professionals to greener pastures elsewhere.
The shortfall was deeply affecting service delivery, “it can be challenging for the facility in the future as others are in the process of exiting.”
Meanwhile, the rate of health workers’ attrition was described as unprecedented in the country’s history fueled by the global shortage of health workers due to the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with the current economic conditions.
The latest Ghana Human Development report asserted that 24 percent of nurses trained in Ghana were currently working abroad due to poor working conditions in the country.
The situation was even more critical for doctors trained in Ghana, with 50 percent having left the country making the Effia Nkwanta Regional Hospital, the only referral facility in the Western Region, according to the Medical Director, suffering same.
Already, 40 health professionals have left in the past 12 months for greener pastures as a hundred more have requested leave from work without pay.
Mr. Desmond Cudjoe, the Western Regional Chairman of the Ghana Journalists Association was thankful for the engagement and asked that it was periodic.
GNA
JP/BM/LAA
28 June 2024
