No bed syndrome: Establish a Bed Control Center in our hospitals – Dr. Anaba

The Executive Director of the African Center for Health Research Policy and Analysis, Dr. Thomas Anaba, is advocating the establishment of a Bed Control Center in all the major hospitals and or health centers in the country to manage all the beds in those health facilities.

These centers, he added, should be assigned with a Bed Manager who will link up with the National Ambulance Service for them to know which of the hospitals have available beds that could admit patients on emergency.

Further to that, these centers, running on a special developed software application, could have a centralized point in Accra where managers of all government accredited hospitals and or health centers, could at a go have access to information on the availability of beds in all the hospitals and or health centers in the country.

“With these centers, we will see a great improvement in addressing the issue of congestion in our hospitals. The national coordination body, which will be the National Ambulance Service, can from time to time link up with these Bed Control Centers to find out where beds are available for them to send patients who need emergency health care service to”, he noted.

In addition to that, he said patients who have received treatment at the emergency ward should quickly be transferred to the main ward to help ease congestion in those health facilities.

Dr. Thomas Anaba made this submission in a telephone interview with TV 3, Saturday, July 14, 2018. He was contributing to a panel discussion on the no bed syndrome and the way forward for the country.

Commenting further on the issue, he said the ultimate solution to ending the no bed syndrome is to expand existing hospitals and or health centers to accommodate more beds.