Daughters of Dr Anyah donate essential medicines to Korle Bu

The daughters of the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH), Dr Dzifa Anyah-Nani and Dr Emefa Anyah-Lartey, have donated emergency medicines and a water pump worth GH¢ 30,000 to the hospital.

The medicines included Noradrenaline injection, Ephedrine injection, Frusemide injection, Calcium gluconate injection, Sodium bicarbonate injection and Amiodarone injection.

The medicines were presented to the acting Head of the Department of Anaesthesia of the hospital, Dr Robert Djagblatey, yesterday.

Present at the event were the Director of Pharmacy at the hospital, Mrs Elizabeth Bruce, and the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the KBTH, Mr Mustapha Salifu.

Shortage

Dr Anyah-Nani said the decision to donate the essential medicines to the hospital was because of the periodic shortage of those medicines in the health facility.

“We were trained at the KBTH Medical School and we are aware of the urgent need to have enough supply of these emergency medicines to save lives so we decided to procure them to augment the limited supplies in the hospital,” she said.

Timely donation

Dr Djagblatey described the donation as timely; especially when the Anaesthesia department had run out of supply of the medicines.

“In fact, this is a life-saving donation because some of these medicines have been in short supply and we go through a hell of time when there is an emergency.

“Last week, I realised that there was very limited supply of the medicines so we decided that we will only respond to emergency cases. We have even suspended admission of patients to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) because of the shortage of medicines but this donation is a major boost because we can now operate fully,” he said.

Cumbersome procurement

For her part, Mrs Bruce said the cumbersome procurement processes made it difficult to procure emergency medicines as timely as possible.

She said some suppliers had delayed in delivering the medicines on schedule, saying the situation had put the hospital in dire need of the emergency drugs.

“Some of the medicines are specialised ones and very difficult to come by so we will rely on those that have been donated today with the hope of getting more supplies at the right time,” she said.

She called for a review of the procurement law for the supply of emergency medicines, saying that delays as a result of the bureaucratic tendering process led to loss of lives.