Ghana’s medical community is mourning the devastating loss of Dr. Kwame Adu Ofori, a 47-year-old emergency physician at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi, whose sudden death has stirred national reflection on the state of critical care infrastructure.

Dr. Ofori, widely respected for his commitment to saving lives, suffered a myocardial infarction, commonly known as a heart attack, on duty last week.

His survival depended on a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) — a life-saving procedure that involves threading a catheter through a blood vessel to the heart to open a blocked artery.

But when time was of the essence, there was no catheterisation laboratory (cath lab) — not at KATH, Ghana’s second-largest teaching hospital, nor anywhere in Kumasi.

The vital facility simply did not exist in the region.

Despite the heroic efforts of his colleagues who quickly stabilized him, Dr. Ofori died en route to Accra, where the required procedure could have been performed.

Even an emergency military airlift arranged by the hospital came too late.

"We arranged a team of doctors and special care nurses for him… but he unfortunately died on their way to the hospital,” said the new CEO of KATH, Dr. Paa Kwesi Baidoo, in a solemn account.

The death of Dr. Ofori — a man who had dedicated his life to helping others — has shaken the country’s healthcare system to its core.

His colleagues, who fought desperately to save him, lacked the most basic yet critical facility to treat one of their own. The irony is painful. When the healer needed healing, the system he served failed him.

Medical professionals, health advocates, and civil society organizations are now amplifying calls for the urgent establishment of a fully functional catheterisation laboratory at KATH, warning that if nothing changes, more lives will be lost needlessly.

The lack of such a facility in central Ghana, especially in a major referral hospital, has highlighted a gaping hole in Ghana’s public health system — one that not only endangers patients but also the very doctors who keep the system running.

Dr. Ofori’s death is not just a personal loss — it is a national wake-up call.