Korle Bu has only four ICU beds at Neurology unit – Neurosurgeon

One of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital’s neurosurgeons, Dr. Hadi Abdullah has lamented the lack of resources at the hospital’s Neuroscience Unit.

As an example, he said the whole hospital has only four beds in its Intensive Care Unit (ICU), which is meant to serve patients with severe or life-threatening illnesses and in need of life support equipment, among other critical care.

“With regard to the ICU beds [at the Neuroscience Unit], from what I can see with my eyes, it is only four beds and that does not belong only to Neurosurgery. It virtually serves the whole of Korle Bu,” Dr Abdullah said on the Citi Breakfast Show.

“So in effect, neurosurgery does not have a recovery ward,” he added.

Dr Abdullah’s concerns over the resources of the unit follow the death of a 13-year-old boy at the Korle Bu Teaching hospital following complications from two successful brain surgeries.

He was one of the neurosurgeons that operated on the boy, Michael Kofi Asiamah.

The Neuroscience Unit is also in need of an automated external defibrillator (AED) which is used to restart the heart of a patient when needed.

Dr Abdullah said: “To be honest, it was when I was undergoing training that I saw an AED being used by the anaesthesia department.”

“It is a shame that we don’t have it [AED] readily available,” he said.

Dr Abdullah further suggested that $1 million could be dedicated to needed equipment like neuron navigation machines, operating microscopes among others.