Wa hospital contractors offer 3-yr warranty, training services

Contractors working on the new Wa Regional Hospital, Euroget de-Invest, will continue to offer technical support to the hospital for three more years after the facility is eventually handed over for operation by the end of this month.

During those three years, the company will offer continuous training services to technical staff and servicing of equipment as a sort of warranty for the $61 million hospital.

In the mean time, Euroget is set to begin the training of technical staff to man the various sophisticated systems and equipment on which the hospital will run, as they wind down to hand over.

The project's resident engineer, Mr Ahmed Abou Shamaa, told the Daily Graphic at the project site that the training of local technical staff to man the equipment at the hospital was part of the one per cent work that remained to wrap up the project.

The remaining work also includes testing of equipment and the eventual inauguration of the 160-bed facility, as the labour force of between 200 and 250 artisans -- excluding the engineering staff — speed up the remaining processes.

"We are now doing testing, system by system, equipment by equipment, building by building, after the installations," Mr Shamaa said.

Despite the delayed completion of the project that started in 2010, the terms, as contained in the contract, may offer some compensation, after some youth in the region marched through the streets of Wa last Wednesday to impress upon the authorities to inaugurate the project for use.

Installations

Indeed, the installations were evident during a tour around the facility, and the project engineer said if there were no complaints or new demands from the Ministry of Health or the government, Euroget de-Invest would be ready to hand over the facility in a matter of weeks.

The 99 per cent completed part includes the finished and fully furnished 12 separate clinics, a surgical suite, laboratories, a physiotherapy unit equipped with electronic beds and nerve stimulators, a 60-room staff accommodation, pavements, street lanes, the outer space lighting system, kitchen for staff and patients, a laundry department, mortuary, and other ancillary facilities.

The hospital also has back-up power plants, an oxygen processing system that supplies gas to every bed, a water treatment system, a medical waste disposal system, equipment sterilisation and storage system, and a synchronised electronic system that will ensure a near paperless system in the operations of the hospital.

Referral facility

The referral facility is meant to serve the Upper West Region and beyond, including communities in neighbouring  regions.

But given the level of sophistication of its facilities, authorities of the Upper West Region are considering elevating it into a full tertiary hospital to be run under the auspices of the Wa campus of the University for Development Studies.

The total edifice features a combination of single storey and high-rise structures spread about on a 133,000m² land connected by a fine network of disability-friendly walkways, with an attractive green of growing grass on the outside of the walls in between the drainage system.

Encouragingly, it will be able to accommodate eight simultaneous deliveries, while it has electronically operated beds at the intensive care unit to give comfort to patients.

12 Clinics

Its 12 different clinics include pediatric, maternal health, dental, and ear, nose and throat (ENT) facilities, with an accompanying pharmaceutical department that has a storage space fitted with drug-preserving refrigeration system.

It also boasts seven different theatres: four of them on a surgical suite, two at the obstetrics and gynecology department, and one at the emergency and casualty department.

There are also an administrative block, an emergency/casualty unit, a radiology unit, a laboratory and blood bank, a burns unit, an intensive care unit, a three-storey in-patient block, and a parking space for 300 cars.