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Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, the former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, has said the hospital must not be saddled with a Board Chairman who micro-manages the facility’s operations.

He admonished the practice and said Korle Bu’s Chief Executive and his management team should be allowed to run the hospital instead.

“One thing I pray for is that Korle Bu would get a Board Chairman who will not micro-manage it but will leave the management to the Chief Executive and his management team,” Prof Frimpong-Boateng said, probing that “if a Board Chairman micro-manages the enterprise and he makes mistakes, who is there to check him?”

Prof Frimpong-Boateng made this call when he launched a 170-page book entitled: ‘Taming a Monster’.

The book which according to the professor is based on his handing over notes he presented at the end of his tenure as CEO in 2007, summarizes the challenges facing the hospital and the measures that were taken to meet those challenges.

The book also documents what future management personnel should do “to put this important hospital on the road towards sustained progress,” the author notes.

Prof Frimpong-Boateng was CEO of Korle Bu from 2002 to 2007. He had returned to the hospital in 1989 where, in spite of difficulties, he set up the National Cardiothoracic Centre and became the first director. He also established the Ghana Heart Foundation and has been the president since then.

Professor Agyeman Badu-Akosa, who wrote the foreword of the book, likened the hospital to Nigeria saying: “Korle Bu is like Nigeria to me. The day Nigeria stands tall, that will be the day the whole Africa rises too. The day Korle Bu stands tall, that’s the day the country’s healthcare delivery system will change for the good.”

He said until full-time staff of the hospital stop abandoning their position to spend time at their own personal laboratories and clinics, the hospital will continue to face challenges.