Prolonged closure of Korle-Bu’s renal unit an indictment on Agyemang-Manu – Akandoh

Kwabena Mintah Akandoh, the Minority’s spokesperson on health and Member of Parliament for Juaboso, has expressed that the prolonged closure of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital’s renal unit highlights the ineffectiveness of the Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyemang-Manu.

Akandoh described the situation as “damning” and said it showed that the minister was “not on top of his job.”

He also accused the NPP government of being “insensitive” to the plight of patients, who are dying as a result of the unit’s closure.

The Health Minister on Thursday directed management at the unit to reopen it but the directive seems to have been ignored because the outpatient department was still closed as of 5 p.m.

“What it means is that the minister is not on top of his job, and what it means is that we are better off not having any minister in that Ministry because if the whole minister could give a directive that the place must be opened and the place is still closed, I don’t get it,” Akandoh told Umaru Sanda Amadu on Eyewitness News on Citi FM.

Akandoh also bemoaned the consequences the unit’s closure is having on patients and expressed that the NPP government is the most insensitive he has come across.

“Since I was born, I have never seen an insensitive government like this before,” Akandoh added. “Nobody cares. We have been to the place, we have engaged the management, we have engaged the minister and the minister gave us all the assurances in the world that it was going to be opened but we went back to the place, it was still closed. We gave an ultimatum and the place is still not opened.

A total of 19 outpatients of the renal unit have died since it was closed in May 2023 due to a 4 million Ghana Cedi debt.