By: Murtala Issah
Striking doctors at the Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH), have resumed emergency services following a visit by a delegation from Yaa Naa Abubakari Mahama.
The delegation led by the Zangbalun Lana, Dr. Jacob Mahama, met with the striking doctors to convey a message of a appeal to the doctors to go back to work to save lives.
In an address to the doctors during the visit, the Zangbalun Lana, said, “we implore you to consider the lives that hang in the balance. The cessation of emergency services has far reaching consequences and we fear for the well-being of those who cannot afford to wait. ”
He emphasized the need for the doctors to return to work immediately assuring the doctors that, the Yaa Naa is personally looking into their grievances.
Less than two hours after the meeting, the TTH announced the resumption of emergency services.
A statement on the hospital’s official Facebook page of the TTH stated that, “the intervention of the King successfully got the doctors to resume emergency services.”
The strike action by Doctor’s Association of the TTH, followed the dismissal of the CEO the hips, Dr. Adam Atiku after a surprise visit by the Minister of Health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh and the MP for Tamale North, Alhassan Suhiyini.
The two government officials visited the facility following public outrage over the death of a man at the hospital in what a section of the Public view as negligence on the part of the staff of the emergency ward and the Intensive Care Unit of the hospital.
The TTH was commissioned in 1974 as a Regional Hospital to provide health care services to the people of Tamale and its environs. It was also to serve as the main medical referral center for the Northern Ghana comprising the Upper East, Upper West, Savannah, North East and the Northern Region. It also serves clients from neighbouring Togo, Burkina Faso and the Ivory Coast.
In 2008, the hospital attained the status of a teaching hospital. Despite this status, the management and staff staff say, the hospital is woefully equipped, compelling staff to work under frustrating conditions.
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