Dr Wisdom Amegbletor, Chief Executive Officer of the New Crystal Health Services Limited has said that to have an effective quality health delivery to Ghanaians, there is the need to focus on family-patient-centred care.

He said it was not appropriate for health care to take out the patient and the family who were the major stakeholders in health care saying, “when you get to the hospital, we take over the patient and determine when you can see them and what to do with them, it is not right.”

Dr Amegbletor told the Ghana News Agency in an interview during the commissioning of the expanded branch facility of the New Crystal Hospital located at Michel Camp, near Tema.

He said New Crystal Hospital had decided to provide family-patient-centred care to its clients in all its branches across the country and care was based on four cardinal principles of dignity and respect, patient participation, information sharing, and collaboration.

“Right now, we know that as Africans, the family is even more important than individuals, we know that even marriage is not between individuals but families.

“So, everything is about families so decided that we will have to be conscious of our traditional roots which is the family, being the centre of everything.

“We have decided that when you come to our facilities, we are going to make sure that the family place is honoured and respected in that we make sure we respect your values and beliefs and every treatment we give you,” he stated

Explaining the principles, Dr Amegbletor noted that healthcare givers must treat patients as they want to be treated to give the person and their family the dignity and respect they deserved.

Dr Amegbletor said we must give them a short waiting time, indicating that “we keep them waiting for too long and if for some reason there might be a delay, you must communicate it to them in a respectful manner.”

He said information sharing about a patient’s diagnosis, laboratory test results and all other care-related information with the sick person was important and must be done and urged patients and their families to demand such information from the caregivers as it was their right.

He said in accordance with the family and patient-centred care, the staff of the New Crystal Hospital has been charged to discuss the treatment option available and look at the cost implication with the patient as a way for them to make an informed decision.

He added that with patient participation, clients must be allowed to make a choice on who can visit and stay by their side, when they want to receive visitors without restriction, and even decided who would bath them or administer drugs to them

Dr Amegbletor noted that they also recognized that the community they operated in was a major stakeholder and therefore the need to collaborate with them by bringing together more people from outside its management to investigate its operations.

He said cost was a major issue since it must pay staff and buy the needed planning while its clients were low-income people.

“It’s always a challenge but we find ways to be efficient by using technology like running on software instead of folders, having a lean inventory management, we don’t keep too much inventory, so we run efficiently and still remain very profitable,” Dr Amegbletor stated.

Professor Agyeman Badu Akosa, Board Chairman of the New Crystal Health Services Limited, reiterated the need to deliver such family and patient-centred health care to the people stressing that customer service would be at the heart of all operations of the hospital.

Prof. Akosa said it was their core value to provide the needed quality health care to the poor as they also deserve such care, therefore the move to contract loans from the International Finance Company to expand its operations to reach out to more people.

He urged those in the catchment areas of the hospitals to visit them for their general and specialist services including Ear, Nose, and Throat Clinic (ENT), urology, skin, prosthetics, and orthotics, among others.