Chiraa requests to host district hospital

The Chiefs and people of Chiraa in the Sunyani West Municipality of the Bono Region have appealed to the government to site the proposed district hospital for the Sunyani West Municipality in the town.

The Sunyani West Municipality has been selected as one of the districts without hospitals which will benefit from the government's construction of 88 district hospitals across the country.

According to the people of Chiraa, there were enough facilities and vast land for immediate and future upgrading of the Chiraa Health Centre to the status of a municipal hospital, hence their plea for the district hospital to be sited there.

In one of the President's nationwide broadcasts to update Ghanaians on the country’s enhanced response to the coronavirus pandemic, he announced that the government would construct 88 hospitals for districts without hospitals.

Soon after the announcement, the Chiraa Traditional Council, through the Town Development Committee, petitioned the Ministry of Health (MoH) to consider constructing the proposed Sunyani West Municipality Hospital at Chiraa.

Press conference

The Chiraa Youth Forum (CYF) last Wednesday, May 27, 2020, therefore organised a press conference to add its voice to the call by the chiefs and other stakeholders for the community to be considered for the hospital.

Addressing the media, the Convener of the CYF, Mr Joseph Opoku Kyeremeh, called on the government, the Bono Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) and the Sunyani West Municipality Assembly to grant their request for them to feel belonged in the municipality.

He explained that a special team from the Bono Regional Health Directorate recently took a comprehensive audit of the facility and scored it 80 per cent to attain a full hospital status, adding that the centre required just a few additions to attain the status required of a full hospital per the ratings of the Ghana Health Service.

“If it is the question of upgrading the existing facility into the new municipal hospital, there is enough land available for immediate and future use,” Mr Kyeremeh stated.

Reason for request

He explained that the council and individual families in the community were prepared to offer the government a large parcel of land without dispute for the construction of the hospital and for future expansion and development.

He said Chiraa needed the municipal hospital because it was located on the main Sunyani-Techiman-Wenchi Highway, which was one of the major accident-prone stretches in the region, adding that with the increasing vehicular movements on the stretch, Chiraa would be a strategic location for emergencies such as road accidents.

Mr Kyeremeh said some nearby communities in different municipalities such as Buoku, Ahwene, Mallamkrom and Ayigbe in the Wenchi Municipality; Amangoase in the Techiman Municipality and Mankranho and Baffokrom in the Tano North Municipality currently accessed healthcare services at the Chiraa Health Centre because, giving it prominence for the municipal hospital.

He said residents of Chiraa and its surrounding communities had to travel for about 19 kilometres to Sunyani and 45 kilometres to Techiman and Wenchi to access health care, unlike its counterpart communities such as Fiapre, Odumase, Kwatire and Nsoatre where residents travelled for a shorter distance to access hospital services in Sunyani.

Decentralised departments

Mr Kyeremeh said Chiraa had not been fairly treated in terms of the distribution of the government departments and structures, explaining that it was a common understanding during the creation of the district that government projects, departments and structures would be equitably spread across the district.

“As it stands now, Chiraa does not have a single of the decentralised departments as all the decentralised departments have been concentrated at either Odumase, Fiapre or Nsoatre,” he stated.

Mr Kyeremeh said the community had contributed immensely to the revenue mobilisation of the assembly as records from the assembly indicated that in 2019, Chiraa topped the assembly’s revenue generation with GH¢104, 612.

He said the community had over the years added several amenities to widen the scope of health delivery at the centre in an attempt to raise the facility to a hospital status and mentioned the construction of two new doctors’ bungalows, renovation of existing doctors’ and nurses' quarters, a theatre and outpatients department as well as donations of an ambulance, hospital tools and equipment.