National Cardio Centre to be relocated

Page 48: Daily Graphic, August 4, 2009.
Story: Albert K. Salia
THE National Cardiothoracic Centre is seeking $25 million to relocate and build a Cardiothoracic Hospital for Ghana.
Designs of the new cardiothoracic hospital have already been completed.
A paediatric heart wing that will focus on the care of children with congenital and acquired cardiovascular disease and other specialised units, will be included in the new hospital.
The centre is now seeking for 200 acres to start the project.
Addressing a press conference to launch the 20th anniversary celebrations of the centre in Accra yesterday, the outgoing director of the centre, Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, explained that the centre in Korle Bu was getting overcrowded and, therefore, stressed the need to relocate to a new site.
He explained that as more staff members were trained in cardiovascular care, sub-speciality training became a more realistic approach to attain cutting-edge efficiency.
He cited for instance that the centre introduced a Video Assisted Thorascopy Surgery (VATS) service that allowed surgeons to do certain selected cardiothoracic cases without the chest being opened.
“I wish to call on Ghanaians to help make this project a reality. You built the present facility and I believe that you can build the new one as well. Yes we can,” he stated.
Prof. Frimpong-Boateng said the centre had set a high standard in health institution construction, departmental organisation as well as training and management of hospital personnel, achievements that could not be ignored or wished away.
He said he wanted the success of the centre to inspire others, especially the youth of Ghana, to strive for excellence.
“If heart surgery, which is perhaps the most complex of the surgical disciplines, in terms of equipment inputs and training requirements of personnel, has been made possible in Ghana by Ghanaians with our own resources and management skills, then it should be possible for us as a people to excel in all areas of our national life,” he said.
“From my own personal observation, the public health delivery system is collapsing and if nothing is done to arrest the factors contributing to the decay, in about 10 years, there will be no system to write about,” he said.
The major problem he identified was the attitude of health workers toward public property, saying that several factors fed into the malaise as there was very little commitment to growth and development of public institutions.
Prof. Frimpong-Boateng said the celebration of the 20th anniversary should serve as a springboard for strategic thinking into the future.
“From a sole crusader and a few supporting staff 20 years ago, the staff strength has grown to over 130 in all categories. I am particularly happy and blessed to see that there are now six other qualified and motivated heart surgeons who are ready to keep the torch I lit 20 years ago burning,” he stated.
Prof. Frimpong-Boateng said there were major factors that militated against the establishment of centres of excellence in the third world.
Those factors, he said, included attitudinal issues, lack of trained personnel or requisite human resource, lack of facilities, poor maintenance culture and poor remuneration of workers.
Based on those factors, he said, there was the need to let members of staff realise that Ghanaian medical personnel had the capacity to establish symbols of medical excellence without depending on others, saying that any assistance, if at all necessary, should not make Ghanaians dependent on perpetual infusion of foreign aid and expertise.
Prof. Frimpong-Boateng said the most important factor in the success story of the centre was the human capital as continuous education and further training of personnel were taken seriously.
He said the centre was now the site for the practical training for the Peri-operative and Critical Nursing Training Programme of the Ministry of Health and also accredited by the West African College of Surgeons as the Centre of Excellence for the training of cardiothoracic surgeons, cardiac anaesthetists and cardiologists for the West African sub-region.