Constant insults and attacks frustrating us - TTH Management

Management of the Tamale Teaching Hospital has said that its staff are getting frustrated because of the persistent insults and negative reportage by the media and constant attacks on its staff by patients and patient relatives.

This came to light when emissaries of the Paramount Chief of the Gulkpegu Traditional Area in Tamale, led by Choggu Naa Mahamadu, paid a working visit to the facility on Thursday to interact with management and find out what the challenges of the hospital were.

The Management members who poured out their frustrations claimed the constant insults and attacks demotivate them from giving off their best.

Director of Administration at the hospital, Lawyer Emmanuel SK Donkor while addressing the meeting accused the media of staging some of the stories they do at the TTH.

“I’m sorry to say, media men are here, they don’t cross over to check the news they have before they publish, maybe we are the easy targets.
Let’s be very responsible, there are a lot of the things we hear on the airwaves, seriously, you don’t cross over to check from us whether or not it’s true… Sometimes we want to believe that it is orchestrated, it is staged, but you see, the staff who are working here, they are human beings, if it continues this way, I’m telling you that they’ll become fed up and it won’t be deliberate but they cannot give off their best.” He alleged.

He urged journalists to cross check they information at the hospital before publishing.

“So I’ll plead with the media men, anything they hear, they should cross over and check how true it is before they publish, that is very key, otherwise we’re working, we are working very well, the staff here are dedicated staff, very professional, they give off their best but if we have to continue to malign the staff, obviously we’ll not get the best out of them”.

The Acting Chief Executive Officer of the hospital, Dr Adam Atiku commended the chiefs for the visit, saying that such visits would always motivate their staff to work without any fear.
He said the hospital had made some positive gains in recent years, urging the media to always highlight these positives in order to help fix the hospital’s broken public trust.

Dr Atiku said among other things, the hospital had acquired additional CT-scans, ending years of instability in the provision of CT-scan service at the facility.

He added that, the hospital had also established an ultramodern children’s theater to cater for emergency operations among children.
He said despite these positive gains, the hospital only gets negative publicity in the press.

The Secretary of the Gulkpe Naa, Mr Mohammed Abdul Rashad urged management of the hospital to retool its Public Relations outfit, observing that the poor public image was largely because of its poor public relations.

He said as chiefs, they were going to focus their attention on the running of the various departments of the hospital.
This he stressed would be the best way to addressing the numerous challenges the hospital was faced with.