Inpatient Guide

 

Most ward areas have both television and radio. You are welcome to bring in personal stereos with earphones. Please do not bring in large amounts of cash or jewellery. The hospital cannot accept responsibility for loss or damage to your personal property and disclaimer notices are on every ward.

Should you need to bring valuables in to hospital with you, hand them immediately to the Ward Sister/Charge Nurse upon admission who will give you an official receipt and ensure safe custody. Cash and jewellery will be immediately taken to the Patient Affairs Office and deposited in their safe. No valuables will be kept on the ward. Every effort will be made to hand the money deposited back in cash however, if that is not possible, a cheque may have to be raised by our Finance department.

Medicines and Tablets
Please bring with you any medications, including creams and over the counter herbal and homoeopathic remedies that you are currently taking. This will help us to establish all your present medication quickly. A list or a computer printout of your medication from your GP is not sufficient. If you are on Warfarin please bring in any records you may have.

When You Arrive

If possible, please try to arrange for someone to accompany you to hospital, as it would be helpful for him or her to take away items that you won’t need during your stay.

You will be asked general information from the nursing staff, i.e. name, address, GP, ethnicity, religion and your next of kin contact details. Please ensure that you bring this information with you.

It’s important that we ask these questions. It’s to make sure that we have up to date and accurate information about you the patient. We may need to write to you or your General Practitioner and this is difficult if we don’t have accurate information.

Recording things such as patients’ ethnicity helps to ensure we have an accurate picture of the patients we are treating and means the services we provide reflect the local population’s health needs.

On the ward

Each ward has its own routine and ward clerks and housekeepers on most wards are there to advise and help you during your stay. However, there is general information that would apply whichever hospital or ward you are going to be a patient in:

Staff identification
All hospital staff wear identification which shows their name, position and photograph. This is normally in the form of a plastic badge either clipped onto clothing or worn around the neck.

Smoking
Tamale Teaching Hospital operates a No Smoking Policy

Telephone calls
Nursing and midwifery staff would appreciate it if you could nominate one relative, carer or friend to telephone the ward to find out how you are and to pass the news on to others.

Mobile Phones
Mobile phones emit signals that will interfere with medical equipment and may cause harm to other patients. We therefore ask that all mobile phones be switched off in all ward and clinic areas of the hospital.

Mobile phones may be used outside of the hospital.

Visitor Information

A patient can be visited during visiting hours

Infection Control
Tamale Teaching Hospital would like to encourage all visitors to use wash their hands upon entering and leaving the wards. This will help to reduce the spread of infections. Hand washing and using alcohol hand gel are two of the simplest and most effective ways of preventing cross infections and protecting patients, visitors and staff.

Going home

Staff will try to give you as much information as possible concerning your discharge in order that you can arrange to be collected by your relatives/carers. Please talk to staff if you are unable to make your own arrangements or are not fit enough to travel home alone.

Medicines/Wound dressings
If you have been prescribed any medication/dressings during your stay in hospital we will give you a supply to take home. No charge will be made for this. Should you need to continue this medication your GP will be advised of your medication so that they can issue further prescriptions. Please remember to collect any medication that you brought with you into hospital with you from the ward staff.

Patients’ property
Please ensure that all your valuables (i.e. cash, jewellery or pension books) that were deposited into the Patient Affairs Department for safekeeping, are returned to you before going home.

Medical certificates
Please ask the ward staff for any medical certificates you may need before leaving the ward.

Incoming mail
Please leave a forwarding address for your post.