The Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi is appealing for additional life-saving medical equipment to enhance care for preterm babies in its neonatal intensive care unit. As a major referral center for 12 out of Ghana’s 16 regions, KATH reports that between 44% and 50% of the babies admitted are preterm, which places immense pressure on its limited facilities.
According to Dr. Yaw Opare Larbi, the Deputy Medical Director of the hospital, the neonatal unit suffers from severe equipment shortages despite having a few functional incubators. “During peak admission periods, we are sometimes forced to place up to four babies in a single incubator, which is designed for one or two,” he told Kumasi FM’s Elisha Adarkwah.
Dr. Larbi made the appeal during the launch of Prematurity Awareness Month, organized by the Pediatric Society of Ghana under the theme “Equitable Care for Every Preterm Baby.” He highlighted incubators, ventilators, CPAP machines, and radiant warmers as the most urgently needed items to improve the survival rates of premature infants.
Adding her voice, Christiana Ofori Acquah, a Neonatal Nurse Specialist at KATH’s Mother and Baby Unit, revealed that four incubators are currently out of service, further worsening the challenge. “We don’t even have a ventilator at the moment,” she lamented. “It saddens my heart to see how this affects the babies who depend on us.”
She appealed to the government, corporate bodies, and benevolent organisations to step in with urgent support, stressing that improved equipment could significantly reduce preterm mortality rates and give every baby “a fair chance at life.”
