KATH suspends prophylaxis treatments due to shortage of Hemophilia drugs

Patients suffering form haemophilia at Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) are frustrated due to an apparent shortage of medicines. 

The Ghana Hemophilia Society blames the shortage on the Food and Drugs Authority's delay in approving import permits for donated medications.

As a result, prophylactic treatments have been halted, and hospital supplies have run low, placing patients in need of surgery or emergency care at risk.

The hospital is rationing available medication to prioritise patients with active bleeding, and prophylactic dosages are temporarily discontinued.

 Meanwhile, KATH's Deputy Medical Director, Dr. Yaw Opare Larbi, has stated that, while the hospital has enough medication for treatment, the shortage is preventing prophylaxis administration.

“The current situation is that the factors are in low supply. We have enough for treatment, but we are not doing prophylaxis. So what the parents are used to is two things, both prophylaxis and treatment. And now we are not given the prophylactic doses because we want the stock to be enough for people who come and who need treatment, who come with active bleeding.”

“So that’s the situation now. We haven’t run out of stock, but what we are doing is managing the stock so that it will last long enough for the medication that has been imported to arrive for us to now resume the prophylactic arm of their management," he stated.

Source: Lead News Online