‘No more a death sentence’: Upper West gets expanded dialysis unit after years of pain, pleadings and hope

For years, a kidney failure diagnosis in the Upper West Region of Ghana was almost a death sentence. The issue was not that the disease was untreatable, but that the necessary treatment – dialysis – was 700km away in the nation's capital, Accra, or the second-largest city, Kumasi. Families were forced to sell their possessions, patients were airlifted to the cities for treatment, and some patients tragically died while en route.

The painful chapter finally came to an end in Wa on August 4 when the new dialysis unit at the Upper West Regional Hospital was officially commissioned.

Dr. Philip K.K. Baabiineh, the Medical Director of the Upper West Regional Hospital, could not conceal his emotions during the event. As a doctor, he had witnessed patients with kidney failure deteriorate before his eyes due to the unavailability of dialysis – the very treatment that could have saved their lives. He recounted how families had exhausted all resources searching for the life-saving treatment outside their region, and how hope had faded from their eyes.

Baabiineh emphasized that these moments would forever remain etched in the minds of healthcare professionals.

Before 2022, patients who could not afford the costly trip were often left to their fate. Dr. Baabiineh expressed concern over persistent power fluctuations that posed a serious risk to the longevity and reliability of the sophisticated dialysis machines. To address this issue, he appealed to all stakeholders for support in ensuring a stable and uninterrupted power supply to the hospital, stating that protecting these machines ultimately meant saving the lives of patients who depend on them.

The man credited with making this expansion possible was Rt. Hon. Alban Bagbin, the Speaker of Parliament. Speaking at the event, Bagbin recounted his own experiences of personally airlifting patients from the region to Accra for dialysis treatment, only for them to succumb to death. He expressed his frustration, stating that this plight was not a new reality for the nation, as similar situations had occurred in the past.