Access Bank, IT Consortium supports UGMC
Access Bank, in collaboration with IT Consortium Ghana, has donated a cheque for GH¢100,000 to the University of Ghana Medical Centre (UGMC) as support towards the construction of a modern clinical trials laboratory.
Advertisement
The donation to the UGMC in Accra last Wednesday formed part of the collaborative efforts by the companies in supporting health-oriented projects and impacting the lives of people in their business environment.
The UGMC’s modern clinical trial laboratory, according to the Director of Medical and Scientific Research at the UGMC, Professor George Boateng Kyei, was estimated to cost about $5 million and would be the first of its kind in West Africa.
It is expected to provide precision medicine, where medical professionals prescribe treatment, including medication, in a faster time based on the results of the lab examination.
Fulfilled pledge
Speaking during the presentation of the cheque, the Zonal Head of Retail Bank at Access Bank, Josephine Eva Arthur, said the donation was in fulfilment of a pledge made to UGMC to support the construction of the clinical trial laboratory earlier this year.
She added that Access Bank and its partner, IT Consortium, were not for only business but also interested in the well-being of their customers and the environment in which they operate, adding that the construction of the facility would be more beneficial to its users which also included customers of Access Bank and IT Consortium.
For his part, the Chief Business Development Manager, Joojo Esua-Mensah, said the donation was necessitated by their passionate interest in health and anything to do with health.
“We've been reaching out to some of our corporate clients to see what we can also chip in to make sure that this objective becomes a reality. Thankfully, Access Bank have heeded the call and they brought something due to our passionate interest in healthcare delivery to the public,” he said.
Other Trending Stories
He urged the public and other corporate bodies to support this cause so that Ghanaians and those in neighbouring countries could benefit from it.
Appreciation, project scope
In his remarks, the Director of Medical and Scientific Research at the UGMC, Professor George Boateng Kyei, expressed gratitude to Access Bank and IT Consortium for the donation for the construction of the most advanced clinical trials unit where the most complicated type of clinical trials could be done.
“It comes to new methodologies to treat cancer, treat autoimmune diseases and cardiovascular diseases. Right now, most of those trials are done in Europe and America, and a little bit in South Africa.
This will help Ghana to also take advantage of the treatment of those diseases even to those outside Ghana,” he said. He said sometimes when the trials were not done in our environment, the medicines did not really work for us, adding that the era of just giving chemotherapy that kills many diseases was fading out, and that was what the new facility would offer when completed.
He intimated that the UGMC hoped to, in the next six months, be able to prepare the place and bring in all the equipment for operationalisation.