2 Hospitals, 30 students receive ASA support
Two health facilities in the Bono and Bono East regions have received essential medical equipment from microfinance institution, ASA Savings and Loans Limited, to enhance their capacity in managing medical emergencies and complications.
The beneficiary facilities are the Kintampo Government Hospital in the Bono East Region and the Kwatire Hospital in the Sunyani West Municipality in the Bono Region.
The Kintampo Hospital received equipment such as beds, pulse oximeters, BP monitors, a centrifuge, 12 buckets, wheelchairs and patient monitors with stands and accessories.
The Kwatire Hospital also received a nebuliser device, Kocher forceps M and Kocher forceps L, boxes of examination gloves, beds and surgeon scissors.
Others are BP monitors, boxes of gauze rolls, large quantities of plaster rolls, absorbent cotton, artery forceps, small straight artery forceps and a Mayo trolley.
The financial institution said the donation forms part of the company’s commitment to improve healthcare delivery and support community wellbeing.
Emergency Complex
At Kintampo, the Nurse Manager of the hospital, Seth Medzida, who received the items, said the equipment, especially the monitors presented, would help the hospital improve its services, explaining that the facility sometimes runs out of medical items.
Lily Opoku Mensah (3rd from right), Corporate Social Responsibility Sustainability Officer at the ASA Savings and Loans Limited, presenting the items to Seth Medzida (3rd from left), Nurse Manager of the Kintampo Government Hospital
He told the Daily Graphic that the health facility had planned to establish an Accident and Emergency Complex to improve emergency healthcare delivery along the Kintampo-Tamale road, one of the accident-prone highways in the country.
He said the initiative formed part of the hospital’s broader expansion project to improve healthcare delivery and increase its range of specialised services.
Mr Medzida said the proposed complex would provide dedicated emergency response and treatment for accident victims, helping save lives and reducing the existing facility's burden.
"The facility, when completed, will serve as a critical care point for trauma, accidents and emergency cases in the middle part of the country," he said.
Frequent accidents
Underscoring the need to establish the facility, Mr Medzida said the highway had been identified as one of the most accident-prone routes in the country, making the need for a specialised emergency facility in the area paramount.
‘’A Critical Care Unit and Emergency complex for the facility is necessary, since the hospital is located on the Kintampo-Tamale Highway, where life-threatening accidents often occur.
"We are actually working on it," he said, appealing to the financial institution and other organisations to support the hospital's agenda.
Anaesthesia machine
At Kwatire, the Medical Superintendent of the Hospital, Dr Daniel Gunguni, bemoaned the lack of an anaesthesia machine and a firefly, a device used for treating neonatal jaundice in newborns and called for support to procure the machines.
He said the hospital was constructing a storey building to expand its capacity and appealed to the public to support them with funds and building materials to speed up work on the facility.
Dr Gunguni mentioned malaria, typhoid, high BP, diabetes and cough as some of the common diseases reported to the facility.
He said the items presented to the hospital were capital-intensive and thanked the benefactors for the donation.
The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Sustainability Officer at the ASA Savings and Loans Ltd, Lily Opoku Mensah, said the company was interested in people's health.
"We will continue to prioritise the health of Ghanaians and maintain our quality banking services to the public," she said.
Kumasi
In another CSR activity conducted earlier, the microfinance institution presented cheques totalling ¢30,000 to 30 students from senior high schools and tertiary institutions in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region.
Each beneficiary student received GH¢1,000 to relieve the burden on their parents as they continue to fund their education.
Speaking at the brief presentation ceremony at the premises of the Santasi Area office of the institution, Mrs Mensah said the gesture formed part of the yearly CSR programmes of the financial firm.
She indicated that the institution decided to extend educational support to the children of parents who do business with the entity, saying, “as a firm, we benefit from our clients in our operation.
This move is to reciprocate the support we receive from our clients by supporting their children's education.”
She advised the students to take their studies seriously to obtain excellent results and certificates to pursue further studies or secure employment opportunities to better their lives.
Objective
The Santansi Area Manager, Asa Savings and Loans, Alexander Opoku Ayitey, said the objective of the support, which had been institutionalised, was to make the firm responsible for the basic needs of communities within its operational areas.
While mentioning that the support was not huge enough to take care of all the educational needs of the students, he advised the students to shun acts that could negatively affect their academic pursuits to justify the investment in them.
The Head of Finance and Administration, Kumasi Metro office of the Ghana Education Service (GES), George Appiah Brenya, lauded Asa Savings and Loans for aiding the students.
In an interview, some parents and students who received the support praised the institution for its resolve to commit financial resources to support the growth of education and other sectors of the economy.
Writers’ emails: biiya.ali@graphic.com.gh / gilbert.agbey@graphic.com.gh
