Operationalise Ashanti Regional Hospital— Asantehene

The Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, has called for the operationalisation of the Ashanti Regional Hospital at Sewua to ease pressure on the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH).

KATH, he said, was under enormous pressure as a tertiary health facility in the region and the ultimate referral health centre in the middle belt, and that operationalising the regional hospital would take the pressure off KATH.

Otumfuo Osei Tutu made the call when the Minister of Health, Dr Bernard Okoe Boye, called on him at the Manhyia Palace in Kumasi as part of his four-day working visit to the region.

Dr Okoe Boye was accompanied by his deputy, Adelaide Ntim; the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, and other management staff of the ministry and the GHS.

Otumfuo Osei Tutu said after resources were invested into putting up the facility and equipping it, it should not be left idle for all the equipment to become obsolete and unusable.

The minister and his entourage were in the region to inspect some ongoing projects in the health sector and to interact with staff of the ministry. It was also for the minister and his deputy to formally introduce themselves to the Asantehene.

The Ashanti Regional Hospital is a 250-bed facility located in the Bosomtwe District. It is one of six hospital projects completed by Egyptian investment firm, Euroget De-Invest, across the country.

Although the hospital has been completed for more than a year, with all the medical equipment installed, it has not been operationalised due to the bad condition of the  two-kilometre access road and the lack of utility connections to the facility.

Given the power supply constraints, sources have indicated that the facility requires a dedicated transformer to provide constant and reliable power to make it functional.
The access road also needs to be reconstructed.

Euroget has already delivered the Ahafo Ano North Municipal Hospital in Tepa and the Asante Akim Central Municipal Hospital, both in the Ashanti Region; the Tain District Hospital at Nsawkaw in the Bono Region, the Twifo-Atti-Morkwa District Hospital at Twifo Praso in the Central Region, the Ga East Municipal Hospital at Kwabenya in the Greater Accra Region, and the Wa Regional Hospital in the Upper West Region.

The Egyptian firm is also working on a 60-bed hospital project at Salaga in the Savannah Region and a 500-bed military hospital at Afari in the Ashanti Region. The Asantehene observed that those issues should not delay the operationalisation of the hospital, and urged the government through the Ministry of Health to resolve the challenges to get the hospital working.

Currently, he said, KATH was undergoing some renovation and needed to move some of the patients to create space for the contractor. He therefore expressed the belief that if the regional hospital was running, it could provide the necessary space for KATH to move some of its services there.

He also entreated the government to complete some of the Agenda 111 Hospital projects to enable it to serve the public. Otumfuo Osei Tutu acknowledged that it might not be possible to complete all of the 111 hospital projects before the end of its term but encouraged the government to complete especially those that had reached advanced stages before leaving office.

Dr Okoe Boye called on the management of KATH where the Chief Executive Officer, Prof. Otchere Addai-Mensah, briefed him on the ongoing renovation at the facility as part of the legacy projects of the 25th anniversary of the Asantehene.

He said $4 million out of a targeted $10 million had been raised to renovate the 70-year-old blocks at the hospital. The minister commended the management of KATH for coming up with the Heal Komfo Anokye Project to raise funds to renovate the hospital.

He suggested that the fundraising project be turned into an endowment fund after the project where people could donate to assist the hospital. Dr Okoe Boye later visited the Maternal and Children’s Block of KATH to inspect the progress of work.

Briefing the team, the consultant on the project, Nana Abu Bonsra, said works stalled following the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme. He, however, said work on the project had since resumed following the necessary signals from officials, and added that it was about 53 per cent complete.