Manasseh Azure Writes

Eric Seddy Kutortse is the Chairman of the First Sky Group of Companies. For the past five years, this man and his business decided to save lives at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in a significant way.

Some patients with kidney failure who needed dialysis to survive were dying because the procedure is expensive. They need dialysis, sometimes multiple times every week unless the patient gets a transplant, a service that only a few are able to access in India and other foreign lands where the expertise and facilities exist.

Some kidney patients say it costs them 1000 cedis every week or more to undergo dialysis and its related treatment. The patients include children, retirees and unemployed youth. Coughing up 1000 cedis every week for treatment is something that only a few people can afford.

Those who could not pay for the dialysis did not have many options.

Fortunately for them, the First Sky Group took up the cost for ALL KIDNEY PATIENTS at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital.

At the 20th Anniversary thanksgiving service held by First Sky Group last Sunday, the CEO of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Dr. Opoku Ware Ampomah, mentioned that over 1000 patients have benefitted from this free dialysis.

He said every month, about 250 kidney patients receive free dialysis. All that the patients have to do is to show up and be treated. The company also sponsored kidney transplants for some patients. Dr. Ampomah disclosed that it has cost the First Sky Group 26 Million cedis for the last five years.

What this means is that many of these people would have died but for this intervention.

This year, First Sky Group is sponsoring the construction of a kidney transplant centre, the first of its kind in West Africa when completed.

As we commend the First Sky Group, we need to remind our government of its responsibility to the people. The National Health Insurance Authority should consider cases of this nature when people have to pay or die.

I know it’s not too expensive if our funds are managed well. Not long ago, the Auditor-General revealed that the government had paid over 184 million cedis of Health Insurance funds to Zoomlion in yet another shady fumigation exercise in the assemblies.

Meanwhile, I know of two other separate fumigation deals between Zoomlion and government institutions that are held in the assemblies.

If 26 million cedis can save so many lives for the past five years, what can’t 184 million cedis do?

Dr. Okoe Boye, please, you and the NHIA should be thinking about what would happen to these patients if the First Sky Group is not in a position to keep paying for their treatment.

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