The Ghana Health Service GHS is confident the new Upper West Regional Hospital would be operational by the end of the first quarter of 2019.
Impressed by the level of work of the contractor, the Director General of the GHS Dr. Anthony Nsiah-Asare was optimistic that the contractors will meet the set deadline.
He said hospital equipment would be installed and tested from the 15th of November this year.
“By 15th [November, 2018], if they start testing the machines; they will know the machines which are faulty and those we have to adjust. I am very hopeful that we will take it [hospital] fully early next year. First quarter next year, we should be taking the keys of this hospital and putting people to work,” he explained.
The 160 bed capacity hospital is expected to serve people from the Upper West Region, parts of the Upper East and Northern Regions as well as parts of Burkina Faso.
“Medical Tourism can even start, because our neighbours from Burkina Faso can access this hospital. It will bring direct foreign exchange into the country and into this hospital.”
Dr. Nsiah Asare said this when officials of the Ghana Health Service, (GHS), members of the Governing Council and the Regional Health Administration visited the facility to ascertain the level of work done.
The new Upper West Regional Hospital is among nine other hospital projects across the country which is being built with loans contracted under the Euroget De-Invest Project about eleven years ago.
With the hospital expected to be fully operational in the first quarter of next year, the Director General of the GHS Dr. Anthony Nsiah-Asare explained that to prevent unnecessary deaths, an oxygen plant has been installed saying “there is an oxygen plant unit. We are producing the oxygen on site and so every part of the hospital is piped with oxygen. There will be oxygen readily available.” Adding that to keep up with the times, the hospital will be networked to ensure management runs a paperless system.
The team visited the already existing regional hospital to familiarize themselves with the activities of the facility and hold a staff durbar.
At the staff durbar, the Regional Director of Health Services Dr. Osei Kuffuor Afreh said the Service is now focusing more on issues of quality rather than quantity when it comes to healthcare delivery.
“The Service is moving away from numbers, when we ask what is your ANC attendance and we all mention, 95 percent and we are all happy. No, now we are moving into what happened to every individual when they had the ANC attendance. We are moving from numbers into quality issues.”
The Chairman of the Governing Council of the GHS Dr. Yao Yeboah said as a service over one hundred thousand members strong, there is the need to maintain a high sense of duty and professionalism.
Story by Mark Smith
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Great job done, thanks.