Prof. Titus Kofi Beyuo, board chairman of Korle Bu Teaching Hospital and member of Parliament’s Select Committee on Health, has called on the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Medical Trust Fund to begin training specialised personnel for the new catheterisation laboratories (CATH Labs) being built in Accra, Kumasi and Tamale.
During a visit to the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi, where the project is under assessment, Dr Beyuo warned that the facilities would fail to deliver their intended benefits without adequately trained staff to operate the equipment and provide specialised cardiovascular care.
He urged the government and the trust fund to send nurses, technicians, engineers and other essential healthcare professionals abroad for specialised training ahead of the planned commissioning of the facilities. “By the time we are commissioning all these things by the end of the year, we should have the requisite human resources to be able to deliver services,” he said.
Dr Beyuo explained that the labs would require a multidisciplinary team beyond cardiothoracic surgeons and interventional radiologists, recommending training in countries with established expertise in cardiovascular interventions, including Singapore, the United States, China, India and Canada.
He added that investment in specialised training must go hand in hand with infrastructure development to ensure the facilities are ready to provide services once construction is completed. For decades, KATH has operated without a CATH Lab, forcing some patients requiring specialised cardiac procedures to travel to Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra or seek treatment abroad.
The new facility is expected to improve access to advanced cardiac diagnosis and treatment in the Ashanti Region and neighbouring areas, including timely interventions for patients experiencing heart attacks and other cardiovascular emergencies. Dr Beyuo said the ultimate goal of the projects should be to reduce preventable deaths from cardiovascular diseases. “This is the only way to ensure that no Ghanaian in this country will die from avoidable deaths from cardiovascular events,” he said.
