The Deputy Public Relations Officer of the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association, Philimon Gyapong, says Ghana’s persistent “no-bed syndrome” is evidence of a structurally broken health system rather than a simple shortage of hospital beds.
Speaking on the Asaase Radio Breakfast Show on Thursday (26 February), Gyapong argued that emergency congestion stems from inadequate infrastructure, staffing gaps and weak resource distribution across facilities.
“The system is broken,” he said. “It is not just about the physical absence of beds. Facilities are not well-resourced to manage critical cases, so everyone is referred to the big hospitals.”
He explained that secondary and district facilities often lack the capacity to stabilise emergency cases, forcing patients to crowd major referral centres and overwhelming staff.
According to him, this creates ethical and operational dilemmas for nurses who must sometimes treat patients on floors or in wheelchairs due to lack of space.
“Nurses are overwhelmed. Sometimes they have to nurse patients on the floor. We box all of these issues into attitude or policy problems, but it is really about structure and staffing,” he said.
Gyapong said emergency care should be decentralised, with peripheral hospitals equipped and staffed to handle urgent cases before referrals.
He added that ambulances must also be properly equipped to provide care en route, rather than merely transporting patients.
“If we solve the fundamentals — space, staffing and equipment — many of these preventable deaths will reduce. Passing more laws alone will not fix the problem,” he said.
Source: asaaseradio.com
