The Ridge Hospital (Greater Accra Regional Hospital) has been closed down in less than 72 hours after it was opened to the public.
Patients who visited the refurbished health facility Friday were turned away as the glass doors to the facility were tight locked.
No official reasons have been given for the closure. “As to why it is not functioning we have not had any information,” the spokesperson for the Ministry of Health Robert Cudjoe told Starrfmonline.com
However, it is unclear if it is related to the management impasse at the hospital. “It has nothing to do with it,” Cudjoe stressed.
The Health Minister through the Public Services Commission has ordered the medical director Thomas Anaba to vacate post. The latter who has refused to budge has described the action as “an abuse of power.”
“I transferred him because he is no longer useful for me to manage the new facility… he can never refuse to leave that position, let him so try it… we will take over our place…,” Mr. Agyemang-Manu – the health minister – told Starr News.
He stressed: “We have not employed him, he is a Lecturer at the University so he should go back to the University to Lecture because they are still paying him, and if they are not in need of him they wouldn’t be still paying.”
The Minister further added that Dr. Anaba can seek legal redress if he feels he has not been treated fairly.
“There are laws in this country when you feel that you are not being handled properly, you are maltreated you have remedies not radio,” Mr. Agyemang-Manu adviced the embattled medical director.
The 420-bed expansion project was financed by the government of Ghana with a credit facility from Exim Bank and HSBC Bank of the United States of America (USA).
Some of the facilities of the hospital are a diagnostic and treatment block with a 24-hour surgery unit, an imaging department, a maternity centre, a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), an intensive care unit (ICU), an emergency ICU and a burns unit.
