Hospital Bed Shortage: Accra Has 3,400 Beds For Five Million Residents

There are just about 3,400 hospital beds in Accra, serving the health needs of the over 5 million population.

These beds are found in the seven (7) major hospitals located in the capital.

Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital has the most number of beds, 2,000, followed by the Greater Accra Regional Hospital (Ridge), which has 420 bed. The Trust Hospital has 86 beds and like the abovementioned hospitals, have the equipment and specialists for highly specialised medical care.

The question about the number of beds in major hospitals in the country has come to the fore following the ‘avoidable’ death of a 70-year-old man who spent almost 2 hours in a car being driven by his family in an attempt to find a hospital to attend to his health emergency.

All seven (7) hospitals they visited refused to attend to him because they said there were no available beds.

The man reportedly died in his car at the LEKMA Hospital after they had visited other major hospitals including the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital and the Police Hospital.