North Tongu District Chief Executive (DCE), Mr. Richard Collins Arku says the digital Medical Village at Volo in the area shall remain a white elephant unless experts willingly accept postings to the facility.
He said it was difficult attracting staff to run it, as all efforts through the Volta Regional Directorate of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) for staff for the facility failed to work.
Mr Arku was answering questions on the fate of the facility at a Town Hall Meeting (THM) organised by the Assembly to render account on its stewardship to the public and seek complaints and views to direct its decisions and plans at Juapong.
Lack of decent staff accommodation and the rural setting of the facility, he said were part of the reasons why prospective staff did not want to come.
According to him, the best solution was to search for a willing science-inclined indigene, sponsor him or her for upgraded training to come back and help, or else “this beautiful, expensive and important facility shall remain a white elephant forever, painfully.”
Dubbed “Digital Village”, the USD860, 000 well equipped facility, located at Volo, was constructed in 2015 to improve the healthcare of residents and satellite communities, after a pregnant woman died in the community before she could reach the nearest health facility located several kilometers away beyond the Volta Lake.
It was mainly funded by Samsung in collaboration with UNESCO and Government of Ghana.
The facility comprised a solar-powered fully equipped medical centre, a solar-powered internet school to accommodate 24 students, an administrative block and a solar-powered generator to run all the facilities.
The DCE said suggestions to the health authorities to run occasional medical outreaches or an alternative plan of connecting the running of the village to the St. Anne’s Polyclinic at Tagadzi also in the area, could work.
Mr Arku, nonetheless, assured the people Government has not ignored the challenges about the village.
