Ga East Hospital inaugurated
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo yesterday inaugurated the Ga East Municipal Hospital at Kwabenya in the Greater Accra Region.
The $41 million 100-bed facility, which is a turnkey project, is the second to be completed out of the nine ‘Ghana Hospitals Project’ initiated in 2008.
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The facility, which sits on a 135,000 square-metre land, will serve communities including Kwabenya, Madina, Achimota, Dome, Adentan, Ashongman, Pantang, Abokobi and the north-eastern parts of Accra up to Aburi, in the Eastern Region and its environs.
Facilities
The hospital has 25 structures which house four theatres, four delivery rooms, an emergency and casualty unit, an outpatient department, various wards for inpatients, more than six different clinics including dental, opthalmology, gynaecology and paediatric care.
The rest are orthopaedics and reproductive health, a physiotherapy unit, and an administration block.
It also has a modern laboratory, an X-ray Unit, C-T Scans, radiology and other advanced diagnostics, among other facilities.
Besides, it has a three-storey 20-unit staff bungalow, and a parking space for 148 cars on a tarred surface with 1.5 kilometres of internal road network.
The project was constructed by Euroget De-Invest, an Egyptian construction firm.
Commendation
President Akufo-Addo commended Euroget for completing the work a month ahead of schedule.
He urged the contractor to put in similar efforts in the execution of the other projects at Tepa, Konongo and Sewua, all in the Ashanti Region; Salaga in the Northern Region; Nsawkaw in the Bono Region; Wa in the Upper East Region, and Twifo Praso in the Central Region.
“This hospital has been long awaited in Ga East, and it is good that today, the demand for a district hospital of quality has been realised,” the President said.
Ghana Hospital Project
President Akufo-Addo explained that the Ghana Hospitals Project involved the design, construction and equipping of a military hospital, two regional hospitals and six district hospitals with a total of 810 beds at the cost of $339 million.
He said the project fell under the broader objective of providing infrastructure for the delivery of effective health care to the citizenry.
“This edifice has been put up at great cost to our nation, and we should be in the position, some 10 years down the lane, to see it still in good condition. It should not fall in the ways in which some institutions like this in Ghana have gone. The leadership of this facility must set the example for its periodic and constant maintenance,” President Akufo-Addo said.
He gave an assurance that the government will work to improve access to essential and quality health services through the provision of infrastructure, equipment and logistics, including the deployment of appropriate technology as part of the drive to attain universal health coverage.
According to the President, the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) ‘which was left in ruins’ under the previous government, had been revived.
“We have cleared the GH¢1.2 billion arrears we inherited, and brought the operations of the NHIS back to life. We have also launched a mobile renewal of NHIS membership policy,” he said.
President Akufo-Addo said the government had taken delivery of the first batch of 96 ambulances, as part of the fulfilment of its promise to procure one ambulance each for the 275 constituencies in the country, adding, the rest would be delivered by the end of December, this year.
“We are delivering essential medical health products through the use of drones, and just within the past five months of its operations, I am told over 1,000 flights have been made with over 5,000 products delivered,” he added.
Universal Health Coverage
The Minister of Health, Mr Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, said the completion of the various hospital projects formed part of the government’s agenda to improve healthcare delivery “in our quest to achieve universal health coverage”.
He mentioned some ongoing projects to improve healthcare to include a 750-bed maternity and children’s block at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi, which the minister said, had been abandoned for decades.
Mr Agyeman-Manu appealed to the Ministry of Roads to ensure that the road leading to the hospital and its environs was in good shape.
The Chairman of the Euroget Group, Mr Said Deraz, in a statement, pledged the company’s commitment to complete the rest of the projects on schedule.
He was grateful to the government, the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service (GHS) for their support in the successful completion of the project, including that of Wa in the Upper West Region in August this year.