The fear of victimisation by some health officers has been identified as a major reason why patients fail to report the substandard medical service rendered to them in many rural areas in the country.
This was revealed by participants at the inception meeting of the first ever programme dubbed: ?Projecting Citizens Voices for Health Accountability? over the weekend in Cape Coast.
The programme, which was funded by STAR-Ghana under the auspices of the Alliance for Reproductive Health Rights (ARHR), was aimed at increasing the influence of Community Support Organisations (CSOs) and Parliament in the governance of public goods and service delivery within the health sector.
Contributing to discussions on their experiences in handling customer complaints, some of the participants intimated that even though avenues for complaint redress have been created in forms such as complaints boxes and desks, the patients are apprehensive in openly expressing their views.
The reason, according to a Senior Midwife, Mrs Mariatu Seidu, is that the patients are scared they will be victimised later by health officials when they return to the hospital.
She said the situation is so bad that the patients prefer suffering in pain than getting their grievances resolved by hospital administration.
District Health Director of Juabaso, Dr. Francis Amissah, who was also a participant, corroborated the revelation saying that there is an erroneous impression that their lives depend on the doctors and nurses so if they table any complaints, their lives will be made unbearable.
Dr. Asiamah indicated that while fear prevents the people from going to the complaints desks, illiteracy is also a barrier to some of the folks as they are unable to write their complaints.
He expressed optimism that the accountability project will encourage more people to let hospital officials know their grievances.
STORY: KORYEKPOR AWLESU FREEMAN
