Upper West referral hospital to be handed over this month

The Upper West Regional Referral Hospital at Wa is expected to be ready and handed over to the government before the end of November, this year.

At the moment, feverish preparations and finishing touches are being put in place for the installation of the ultra-modern state of the art digital machines and equipment.

Machines installed

Some of the digital machines and equipment being installed at the Radiology Department include mammographic, fluoroscopic imaging, X- Ray, ultra sound, sterilisers and other laboratory equipment.

Conducting the Daily Graphic round last Wednesday to see the progress of work, the contractor on the project, Bio-Medical Engineering Director of Euroget-De Invest (EDI), Mr Sherif Mahmoud said after the installation of the machines the facility would be under the university as one of the top most classification for hospitals the world over.

Mr Mahmoud mentioned the classifications as general hospitals, specialised hospitals, teaching hospitals and university hospitals.

“The facilities at the referral hospital will be in the class of that of South Africa where patients from Ghana are frequently referred to for treatment.

The 160-bed hospital situated on a 133,000 square metre land is the best of the regional hospitals throughout the country,” Mr Mahmoud added.

Against that background the engineer  stated that the regional hospital was going to have the best laugh as he made reference to the axiom that “he who laughs last laughs best”.

He indicated that he was going to stay for one year after the handover over of the project in order to train the hospital staff and personnel on the proper handling of the machines and equipment.

Generators

Mr Mahmoud said the new hospital would come with stand-by generators to ensure that power outages did not affect their operations and added that the hospital would be environmentally friendly since it had an in-built waste management system to ensure that all wastes were properly separated, disinfected and grounded into small packages before finally disposed off.

At the morgue, he said, a hydraulic system instead of the manual one, would lift corpses off the trolleys and take them to the Pathology Department and after the Pathologist had worked on them, deposited in compartments in what he called “the Cooling Room” for eventual embalmment and release to the bereaved families.

Facilities

The hospital has 12 different clinics — including paediatric, maternal health, ear, nose and throat (ENT), and dental facilities, with an accompanying pharmaceutical department that has a storage space fitted with drug-preserving refrigerating equipment.

It has seven different theatres: four of them on a surgical suite, two at the obstetrics and gyneacology department, and one at the emergency and casualty department.

There is an administrative block, an emergency/casualty unit, a radiology unit, a laboratory and blood bank, a physiotherapy unit, a burns unit, an intensive care unit, a three storey in-patient block, a mortuary facility, three structures of 20-unit staff accommodation and a parking space for 300 cars.

The project that started in 2010, is one of nine similar hospital projects being undertaken by Euroget de-Invest across the country.