Abandoned project impedes health delivery at Kaneshie Polyclinic
The Kaneshie Polyclinic in Accra is reeling under pressure following the deterioration of existing facilities and the lack of expansion work to address the growing health demands at the polyclinic.
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An expansion project which was to cater for the increase in demand by patients as a result of population growth in the catchment area is now home for rodents, reptiles and insects.
Challenges
The Medical Director of the Kaneshie Polyclinic and the Okaikoi Sub-metro area, Dr Patrick Amo-Mensah, who confirmed the sad situation of the polyclinic to the Daily Graphic, said the facility was the main public healthcare institution serving a population of over 344,000 in the Okaikoi sub-metro area.
He said last year alone it had to refer more than 800 pregnancy-related cases to the Ridge Hospital because of the lack of space.
He indicated that the polyclinic did not have isolation units to handle cases such as cholera and tuberculosis and that a makeshift structure that was put up to take care of cholera patients had been eaten up by termites.
“As I speak to you now, we don’t have a cholera unit. We need a solid block and not a makeshift structure again,” he said.
Project
Since the polyclinic was constructed in 1966, the facility, which is Ghana’s oldest polyclinic, has seen no expansion.
Currently, the facility, which runs a 24-hour service, has only two small rooms as lie-in wards that cater for 12 patients, in spite of the fact that it receives more than 400 patients daily.
Meanwhile, the uncompleted project which was started in 2004 had rooms for theatres, consulting rooms, dental units, among other facilities.
The polyclinic, Dr Amo-Mensah said, could not finish the project with its internally generated funds because of the legal implications involved.
“We do not know the detailed agreement between the contractor and the Ministry of Health and so we cannot work on it. If given the go-ahead, we can do it in bits and pieces but for now we cannot because of the legal implications,” he said.
He noted that about GH¢1.5 million would be needed to complete the project.
‘Dumsor’
According to the director, the erratic power supply situation in the country was also affecting health delivery services at the facility and, therefore, appealed for support to acquire a power plant, since the only generator there had become inefficient and, therefore, expensive to maintain.