In a blunt assessment of Ghana’s emergency crisis, the Deputy Medical Director of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH), Dr Yaw Opare Larbi, has declared that congestion is no excuse for turning away dying patients at hospital gates.
Speaking during a high-stakes JoyNews dialogue on Thursday, 2nd April 2026, Dr Larbi insisted that life-saving interventions must begin the moment a patient arrives, even if they are still in the vehicle that brought them.
His comments come amid national mourning and outrage following the death of Charles Amissah, a dedicated staff member of Promasidor Ghana Limited, who died after a hit-and-run incident left him languishing without medical care.
Despite the timely arrival of an ambulance, he was turned away by major hospitals in Accra with the excuse of bed unavailability.
After several hours of roaming in the ambulance, he succumbed to the injuries and died.
No excuses at the gate
Dr Larbi, an obstetrician by profession, shared examples of medical teams delivering babies in taxis at hospital entrances to illustrate that care is a matter of will, not just bed space. He argued that for a healthcare worker to claim a patient “cannot be seen” is a fundamental failure of professional ethics.
“The issue of patients arriving at the facility for someone to tell them that we cannot take you should not even come in,” Dr Larbi asserted. “We can’t blame it on congestion. We can start treatment in the taxi.”
He drew parallels to combat medicine to shame the current state of lethargy in some facilities.
“We’ve treated people on the war front, on the field, where there’s fighting and bullets are flying around… so that aspect of it [refusing care] is unacceptable.”
“Even the ordinary person is supposed to do basic life support,” Dr Larbi concluded. “How much more a health worker who is in the hospital? When someone arrives and you say the person cannot be seen, that is unacceptable.”
The bypass of death
Addressing the technical side of trauma, which was critical in the case of Mr Amissah, Dr Larbi noted that simple, immediate actions can bypass obstructions and save lives during the ‘Golden Hour’.
He explained that even in a makeshift setting, a trained professional can clear an airway or make a life-saving incision to ensure a patient begins taking air into their lungs again.
The tragedy has highlighted a perceived “culture of rejection” at various emergency wards, where the first response to a trauma victim is often “no bed” rather than “stabilise the patient.”
A three-point mandate for reform
To fix the broken system, the KATH Deputy Director proposed a triad of urgent reforms:
- Infrastructure & Equity: Upgrading existing facilities and ensuring they are equitably distributed so that distance and accessibility do not become death sentences.
- Staff Motivation & Tools: Ensuring that frontline workers are not only well-resourced but also incentivised to go above and beyond.
- Ethical Leadership: A call for “accountable leadership” and integrity in the workspace to ensure protocols are followed and lives are prioritized over bureaucracy.
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Source: www.myjoyonline.com
