Assembly builds women and children’s hospital
As part of efforts to ensure proper and quality healthcare delivery for women and children in the Techiman area, the Techiman Municipal Assembly has inaugurated a 60-bed capacity health facility to cater for women and children in the municipality and surrounding communities.
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The two-storey facility, christened “Abrafi Women and Children Hospital”, was constructed within nine months at a cost of GH¢1 million.
The healthcare facility was named after the 87-year-old Queenmother of the Techiman Traditional Area, Nana Abrafi Koto, who was enstooled when she was only 17.
The new hospital consists of outpatients department (OPD), maternity and labour wards, two consulting rooms, changing and washrooms, theatre, pharmacy, scanning and emergency rooms, as well as delivery room with beds.
The facility is expected to augment the already existing health facilities in the region to make health care easily accessible to the growing population of the Techiman Municipality.
Number of health facility
The newly inaugurated hospital brings the number of health facilities in the municipality to seven.
Speaking at the inauguration, the Techiman Municipal Health Director, Mr Damien Punguyire, expressed concern over the current trend of the delay in reimbursement of National Health Insurance (NHI) bills.
According to him, the current trend had shown that delay in the reimbursement took, on the average, about eight to nine months.
That, he said, implied that the Abrafi Women and Children Hospital must find its own resources to procure medical materials such as drugs, consumables and stationery that would last within an average of nine months for the facility to continue to deliver services.
Because of the special service the facility would be providing, Dr Punguyire appealed to the Techiman Traditional Council to use its position to lobby for more resources for the hospital.
According to him, investing in the health care of women and children was the best way of preparing a good future for a nation.
Dr Punguyire appealed to benevolent individuals, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), institutions and organisations to support the hospital and pledged that the municipal health directorate would support the facility to make it a quality healthcare provider within the municipality.
Dr Punguyire assured the chiefs and the people of Techiman and the assembly that the facility would be put to good use so as to benefit the present and future generations, and expressed appreciation to the assembly for its support towards quality healthcare delivery in the municipality.
MCE
For his part, the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for Techiman, Mr Philip Oppong Amponsah, said it was a fulfilment to a promise he made to women and children, as well as the health directorate to construct a hospital solely for women and children in the area.
Mr Amponsah stated that provisions had been made to complete ongoing accommodation facilities for staff of the hospital by the end of next month, while the Techiman Traditional Council had also released a vast land for the construction of more bungalows for doctors and nurses of the hospital.
He called for a regular maintenance of the facility to prolong its lifespan.
