The management of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi has appealed to the ministries of Health and Finance to help grant it a tax waiver to clear essential radiotherapy equipment currently held at the Kotoka International Airport.
The hospital is currently facing a challenge of raising almost One million Ghana cedis needed as custom duty and other charges, to clear the Water Phantom, a critical device required for calibrating the Linear Accelerator System used in cancer treatment.
In June this year, doctors at the Oncology Department of the hospital embarked on a strike action in protest over the malfunctioning Linear Accelerator Machine vital for radiotherapy services at the department.
Professor Otchere Addai-Mensah, Chief Executive Officer of KATH, told journalists in Kumasi that, while the required equipment needed to resolve the issue had been procured, the cost of clearing it from the port remained a significant challenge.
He said the management was in discussions with the Ministry of Health and other partners to help secure the release of the equipment.
“On average, KATH sees about 1,086 patients, this brings yearly to around 360,000, so you can imagine the kind of stress on us as a hospital.
Our MRI machine has been there for the past 12 years.
So, you fix this problem and then another problem surfaces.”
You would recall that our Oncology doctors went on strike, and it was because the Linear Accelerator Machine has not been repaired.
We entered PPM and we are paying $210,000 a year for the PPM.
Immediately we fixed that and then there was a problem with the Water Phantom that was required to calibrate the radiotherapy doses.
Now, guess what? they have not been budgeted for.
We have paid $110,000 for the water Phantom machine and the equipment is in house.
But we are having to battle with about One million Ghana cedis by way of duty.
We have written for exemption, Dr Nsiah Asare and the Ministry of Finance are working very hard at it and I hope that very soon the Water Phantom will be brought to Kumasi and our oncology patients who need radiation therapy would begin receiving them,” he stated.
Prof Addai-Mensah also emphasized the need to urgently equip the Renal Unit of the hospital with additional dialysis machines to prevent a potential shutdown.
