Overcrowding is pushing the Accident and Emergency (A&E) Department at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) past its limits. Designed for roughly 50 beds, the unit routinely handles over 100 emergency patients daily, overwhelming health workers and congesting critical care.
Dr. Henry Bulley, Head of the Accident and Emergency Department at KBTH, warns that a massive demographic surge is crushing the nation’s premier referral hospital because, public authorities failed to expand health infrastructure to match population growth.
In an interview he said: When workers built Korle Bu, Ghana’s population was below six million. Today, we exceed 30 million, yet authorities have not expanded the hospital accordingly.
The crisis at Korle Bu reflects broader, structural friction within Ghana’s healthcare network. As a tertiary facility offering specialized medical expertise at accessible costs, Korle Bu receives a relentless stream of referrals from district, regional, and private hospitals nationwide.
However, many of these incoming patients do not require tertiary emergency treatment. Dr. Bulley highlighted that regional and district facilities frequently refer patients whom local doctors have already stabilized and whom staff should transfer directly to specialized wards through Korle Bu’s emergency department instead.
This misplaced referral flow creates severe delays. Emergency staff must keep critically ill individuals in the emergency unit for extended periods simply because deeper specialized units lack open beds.
The pressure on facility infrastructure matches a heavy strain on personnel. While thousands of trained healthcare workers remain unemployed as they await formal government financial clearances, doctors and nurses on duty in emergency wards work under extreme fatigue.
People say nurses are sitting at home, yet when you visit the hospital, the nurses on duty face overwhelming workloads, Dr. Bulley said, urging policymakers to streamline financial clearance processes.
Dr. Bulley also addressed the psychological toll on emergency staff, dispelling the public perception that healthcare personnel lack empathy. People sometimes think health workers lack sensitivity, but we care deeply. We carry these heavy experiences with us, he noted, emphasizing that emergency personnel process severe emotional distress while trying to stay strong for grieving families.
Health professionals and medical advocacy groups continue to urge public authorities to reform and decentralize emergency care through decisive action to:
Upgrade medical equipment and specialist availability at lower-tier hospitals so regional teams can treat patients locally, preventing unnecessary transfers to Accra.
Expedite financial clearance procedures to hire available healthcare professionals and relieve staff burnout.
Expand mental health and psychological counseling within emergency units particularly for trauma patients facing life-altering procedures to improve patient outcomes and recovery decisions.
Implement digital tracking systems across referral networks to eliminate the chronic “no-bed syndrome” that delays life-saving interventions.
Unless public authorities invest targeted resources to align public health infrastructure with demographic reality, referral centers like Korle Bu will continue to bear a load that threatens both patient safety and institutional capacity.
 Department at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH) past its limits.){kind=link}