The Ghana Health Service (GHS) has denied claims that Intensive Care Units in the country are overwhelmed by Covid-19 patients.
According to the Director-General of the GHS, even though the number of critical cases has increased, the Ga East, Ridge Hospitals, and others are capable of taking more critical cases.
His rebuttal comes a few days after the Ga East Municipal Hospital disclosed that the facility lacks adequate nurses needed to take care of the increasing number of Covid-19 patients at the facility.
The hospital said it is in need of oxygen for patients at the Infectious Disease Center’s Intensive Care Unit, as disclosed by the Acting Director of the Center, Dr. Joseph Oliver-Commey.
But appearing before a 9-member committee in Parliament on Thursday, July 15, Dr Patrick Kumah Boagye maintained “our ICUs are not full. For example, Ridge Hospital has 16 ICU beds but as we speak, they only have three occupants. Ga East has about 19 cases currently on admission with six on ICU. There is a plan to upgrade further with support from the COVID-19 Fund the ICU capacity at the Ridge Hospital. As I said, the critical cases have increased, but we are not overwhelmed yet.”
He also revealed that measures are in place to store about 1.7 million doses of vaccines yet to arrive in the county.
He assured, “to prepare for more vaccines, we have had to upgrade our cold chain facilities especially the ultra negative cochain which can store Pfizer, Moderna, and others.”
He added “so far, with our collaboration with Zipline, we have the capacity to store about 1.7 million doses. Yesterday [Tuesday, July 13, 2021] we received 16 ultra-negative cold chain vaccines that will be distributed to all the 16 regions in the country to ensure we are able to vaccinate as many Ghanaians as possible.”
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5fm
