Dr Mark Kurt Nawaane, Chairman of the Committee

The Parliamentary Select Committee on Health has called on the government to immediately address the shortage of staff at the Upper East Regional Hospital in Bolgatanga.

The committee, after touring critical departments of the hospital, including the Out-Patient Department, Accident and Emergency Unit, and the Paediatric Department, among others, observed that few staff, especially nurses, managed the wards with an overwhelming number of patients.

Over the years, the Regional Hospital battled with skeletal staff, which compelled them to issue a statement through the Ghana News Agency in December 2024 to draw stakeholders’ attention to the situation.

Dr Mark Kurt Nawaane, Chairman of the Committee, in an interview with journalists after a meeting with the management and staff of the hospital, noted that “the problem of staffing is number one, and the government needs to do something about it.”

The committee visited the facility as part of its working visit to Teaching and Regional Hospitals across the country to interact with management and staff and to monitor to ensure patients received quality healthcare services.

Dr Nawaane, who is a Member of Parliament (MP) for the Nabdam Constituency in the Upper East Region, emphasised that even though Bolgatanga was a municipality, there was a need for government to add it to the list of deprived areas that urgently needed government assistance.

“We need staff in this area, and the financial clearance can be discriminated in such a way that people who want to come to areas like Bolgatanga should have their financial clearance a bit early,” the Chairman said.

He expressed concern that the entire hospital, a major referral facility for the Region, had one radiographer serving the entire Region and one gynaecology specialist at the hospital, whereas it needed six to operate optimally.

“Our women are suffering. This is the state that the government of the NDC has inherited, but governance is a continuous process, and we should take steps to ensure that we solve some of these problems,” the MP said.

Dr Aiden Suntaa Saanwie, the medical director of the hospital, reiterated in an interview with journalists the need for more staff for the hospital for continuous quality service delivery.

He said the hospital had received some equipment without a biomedical engineer to maintain it, so when it broke down, the management had to rely on repairers outside the Region to fix it.

“Some of them come and end up worsening the problem because they are not certified people. So, these were some of the challenges I raised, among other things, like accommodation for doctors and nurses,” Dr Saanwie said.