Dr Opoku Ware Ampomah, Chief Executive Officer of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, has voiced concern about the alarming growth in kidney-related ailments, revealing that 17% of the Ghanaian population suffers from kidney problems.
According to him, over 700 kidney patients in their registry need continuous dialysis treatment.
In an interview with Bernard Avle on Citi TV’s The Point of View, Dr. Ampomah emphasized the importance of early diagnosis and lifestyle changes, which he claims will help kidney patients live longer lives.
“In the whole country, the last time the registry was done, we realized that there were about 700 patients who needed renal dialysis consistently around the country. About 17% of the population have kidney problems. This is quite a large number. The average around the African continent is about 15%, but in Ghana, it is around 17%. So we have 5 million of our population who have some form of kidney challenge. But then, out of that number, if it’s diagnosed early, most of them can be able to survive on lifestyle modifications. Early diagnosis is very important, so screening is very important.”
“God created kidneys with excess capacity, which is why it is possible for somebody to donate a kidney and that person can still remain healthy. A person can survive on one kidney, half of a kidney, or even a quarter of a kidney. If you are a healthy person, half of one kidney is enough to meet your needs,” He stated this.He blamed the additional levies on the cedi rate and inflation, which he said had undermined the pricing of necessities and forced businesses to run at a loss.
“This current situation is that the prices were set a few years ago, so the GH¢380 was the cheapest you can get around as compared to other facilities. With exchange rate fluctuation and inflation, this has eroded the value of that, and so we are under recovering, in terms of how much it costs for us to provide the service. So there was a need for us to adjust the prices so that we can be able to break even. This is a service that we render not for profit, but just to be able to break even and to be able to sustain it,” Korle-Bu’s CEO clarified.Explaining why the hospital did not submit its plan to Parliament for approval, he chastised hospital workers at the departmental level for ‘prematurely’ imposing new fees without clearance.“Unfortunately, this time, the departmental level prematurely put up the figures for the public. It didn’t come to me. So it came as a surprise. We are still on GH¢380,” he said.
