Prof. Otchere Addae-Mensah Proud of His Legacy at KATH

Immediate past Chief Executive of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Prof. Dr. Otchere Addae-Mensah, has expressed satisfaction with his two-year tenure at the facility.

Speaking at an emotional farewell on Monday, May 5, 2025, he recalled some of the successes achieved as Chief Executive Officer of one of the nation’s premier health facilities and emphasized the need to sustain them in the interest of Asanteman and the nation at large.

Prof. Otchere Addae-Mensah is regarded as one of the most outstanding Chief Executive Officers in recent times.

He is remembered for his innovation, discipline, and hard work, and his tenure oversaw impressive transformations not only in infrastructure but also in service delivery, including the ongoing Heal Komfo Anokye Project, which seeks to raise $10 million for a comprehensive renovation and upgrade of the over 70-year-old facility.

His dismissal has taken the entire nation, particularly the staff and residents of Kumasi, by surprise, with many questioning the rationale behind the decision.

Some suspect the decision is politically motivated. A Kumasi-based pressure group, the Asante Youth Association, has since protested the decision and demanded his reinstatement.

Speaking at his farewell ceremony, Prof. Otchere Addae-Mensah expressed his happiness at having turned the narrative of the facility, stating that about nine out of 10 media reports about KATH have been positive over the last two years.

“For me, two things give me excitement as CEO, and those, he said, are the main theater and the procurement of dialysis equipment.

‘I look at the main theater and I smile, although it is not fully completed, we have seen progress. At some point, the surgeons got frustrated and rightly so, because the circumstances under which they had to do their surgeries were not the best. We took hard decisions and now the main theater has been operationalized.’”

He continued, “For me, one of the things I am proud of that we have together done is the dialysis machines. When I joined Komfo Anokye on 1st December 2022, we had one and a half dialysis machines. Today, we can boast about 20 dialysis machines, of which about 12 of them were bought with internally generated funds.”

Prof. Otchere Addae-Mensah further disclosed that his leadership had seen the massive transformation of the Physiotherapy block at the cost of about 1.5 million cedis, while the main theater block cost about GH₵4.4 million and about seven anesthesia machines were procured, each costing about GH₵500,000.

The outgone CEO also mentioned the poor state of the doctors’ flats and nurses’ blocks, which he said had received a facelift.

“For the two Nurses Blocks, we used internally generated funds, and for the Doctors flats, we used monies from outside (our social connections).”

He thanked the staff of the facility for their immense support over the last few years.

“There comes a time in a man’s life when there is a need for him to make progress (to move on), not necessarily because he doesn’t like where he was but to bring development not only in his life but in the lives of others; the end of an era has come. I want to say a big thank you for your support, for your love, for your direction.”

He apologized to those he might have wronged intentionally and unintentionally in the course of his work and asked for the same from the staff.

He, however, emphasized that those decisions were in the collective interest of the hospital and that he does not regret making them.

“To those whose feet I stepped intentionally and unintentionally, I’m sorry intentionally. But like I said, those on whose feet I stepped intentionally, when it happens again I will still step on.”

STORY BY GEORGE ADDO