4 months ago
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President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo last Friday inaugurated a two-120-bed Sekyere Kumawu District and Adansi North District hospitals at Kumawu and Fomena at separate functions in the Ashanti Region.
The two facilities, which share a common financial arrangement, are part of six hospital projects and an accommodation unit being executed with $175 million funding secured from the United Kingdom Export Financing in 2012.
The Sekyere Kumawu District Hospital, after a 10-year wait, has pediatrics, obstetrics and gynaecology, medicine, surgery, traditional medicine, and mortuary as some of the departments.
The Fomena Hospital, also initiated in 2014, comes with maternity and pediatric wards, consulting and treatment rooms, theatres and recovery rooms, public health department, accident and emergency, laundry, and mortuary, among others.
According to the President, the government’s Agenda 111 Hospitals Project was expected to create over 60,000 jobs upon completion.
“There is an average number of 120 workers on each construction site, and when completed, an average of 559 persons will be employed in a district hospital, 1,343 in the regional hospital, and 947 in each psychiatric hospital:
“This means that 67,635 people will be employed in the Agenda 111 Hospitals Project”, he explained.
He also added that the project would solve the nation’s health needs and creating employment opportunities for the people.
He indicated that there was only one facility at Dodowa which had been completed, with the others at various stages of completion when the government assumed office in 2017.
But, “with the remaining balance of $38.8 million, my government has since completed three relative facilities – Kumawu, Fomena and Takoradi”, the President said, adding those were part of a broader agenda by the government to complete numerous healthcare projects.
The President said five health facilities at Elubo, Bogoso, Mpohor, Nsuaem and Wassa Dunkwa in the Western Region, upgrading of one public health facility in Akontombra in the Western North Region and the new Ashanti Regional Hospital at Sawua, would soon be inaugurated.
“By the end of 2024, we would also complete several significant projects, including the Urology and Nephrology Centre of Excellence at Korle Bu in Accra”, he said.
He mentioned the construction of 11 district hospitals and one polyclinic in the Ashanti, Eastern, Greater Accra and Ahafo regions and various treatment and holding centres being under construction.
Such efforts, he said, aligned with the commitment of government to achieving Universal Health Coverage, and guarantee improved and more efficient health services for all Ghanaians.
Dr Bernard Okoe Boye, the Minister of Health, said the two projects experienced some headwinds between 2012 and 2015, but were now completed with the provision of the needed resources.
He said many healthcare projects were at various stages of completion across the country, which the President had shown commitment to seeing their completion for the benefit of Ghanaians.
The Minister further noted that all the facilities under the NMS project were at an average of 20 per cent completion by January 2017, but the President did not abandon them, but rather worked hard to complete them.
About 2,000 beds would have been added to health facilities in the Ashanti Region by the time the President hands over in January 2025, according to the Health Minister.
The Paramount Chief of Kumawu, Barima Safo Tweneboa Kodua, commended the government for not leaving the region behind in its developmental agenda for the nation.
He appealed to the government to fix the six-kilometre road from Kumawu town to the hospital, as the current situation made the facility not easily accessible to the residents of Kumawu and the neighbouring communities.
FROM KINGSLEY E. HOPE, KUMASI
