Tema Gen. Hospital Records 1,079 ‘Dead On Arrival’ Cases In 2023

…As 174 Die In Road Crashes In January 2024

By; Gifty Arthur

The Tema General Hospital in the Greater Accra Region, has recorded a shocking 1,079 cases of people who were brought to the facility ‘dead on arrival’ in 2023 alone, surpassing the previous year’s figure of 882.

The staggering figure, consisting 621 males and 458 females, was disclosed by the Medical Director of the Hospital, Dr Richard Anthony, describing the situation as “alarming”.

“We recorded a worrying trend of several people being brought in dead on arrival; it is alarming,” he bemoaned.

According to the physician, who made this known at the annual performance review of the Tema Metropolitan Health Doctorate, many of the cases were people from the working class.

He mentioned that, the top ten causes of these deaths are hypertensive complications, diabetic complications, kidney diseases, cerebrovascular diseases, cardiovascular diseases, liver diseases, acute respiratory distress, severe sepsis, pneumonia, and hypovolemic shock, and a range of chronic conditions.

Dr Anthony, said the hospital was looking into the causes and the trends and advised the general public to report any health issues to the nearest health facility to avoid such staggering cases of deaths.

174 Road Crashes

In a separate development, the National Road Safety Authority (NRSA) has recorded a total of 174 cases of deaths in road crashes in January 2024 alone, a Road Traffic Crash and Casualty Situation report, has said.

The death toll represents a 3.33 per cent decrease, as compared to 180 deaths recorded in January 2023.

The distribution of road traffic fatalities by sex indicates that in January 2024, a total of 146 males (representing 84 per cent) and 28 females (representing 16 per cent), died through road crashes.

The data shows a ratio of 1:5, thus, for every one female who died through road crashes, five males also died.

A Ghana News Agency (GNA) report, shows a similar trend in past years of higher fatalities for males, than for females.

A total of 16 persons (representing nine per cent) killed through road crashes in January 2024, were below 18 years, whilst 158 (representing 91 per cent) were reported to be adults above 18 years.

The data indicated that for every 10 adults (above 18-years) killed, a child (below 18-years) was killed through road crashes, revealing a relatively high road traffic death ratio (10:1) for adults than for children within the period.

A total of 1,142 cases were reported during the period, involving 1,991 vehicles and 217 pedestrian knock downs.

Comparing the reported cases for January 2023 to that of January 2023, there has been 0.52 per cent decrease.

Private vehicles-902, constituted the largest proportion of vehicles involved in crashes representing 45.30 per cent, followed by commercial vehicles-654, with 32.85 per cent and motorcycles-435, with the least proportion of 21.85 per cent.

The Greater Accra Region, contributed the most to crashes and came third in fatalities (393 crashes; 29 deaths respectively).

This was followed by Ashanti (311 crashes; 39 deaths, with the highest fatalities recorded).

Eastern Region came third in the number of crashes, with 156 crashes and second in deaths with 35 deaths.

Source: Anchorghana.com