Ho hospital seeks infrastructure support from India

The Ho Teaching Hospital has indicated its readiness to take advantage of the numerous capacity building opportunities available in the health sector through the Ghana –India Cooperation.

The acting Chief Executive Officer of the facility, Dr Lord Mensah, said the Ho Teaching Hospital, which currently provides a broad range of specialists and sub-specialties in the area of diagnostics, surgical and medical interventions, could do with specialist care training of undergraduate and post graduate professional healthcare providers and the capacity to conduct medical research to address problems of the country.

Dr Mensah indicated that areas of support which could be provided by India through collaboration were Cardiology, Gastroenterology, Nephrology and in the area of infectious diseases through long and short courses.

The acting Medical Director made the assertion during a mini staff durbar with the Indian High Commissioner to Ghana, Mr Sungadh Rajaram, as part of his five-day official visit to the Volta Region.

Infrastructural expansion

Dr Mensah said the upgrading of the hospital to a teaching hospital had created the need for an expansion of services and infrastructure to cope with emerging issues.

“The catchment area of the hospital has also expanded tremendously as compared to the time that we were a regional hospital. Now we receive referrals from district hospitals, from the Oti and Eastern regions and also from neighbouring countries such as Togo and as far as Benin,” he said.

He said given the needed attention, the teaching hospital would continue to deliver in line with its vision to be a premium innovative healthcare providing institution, in medical education and research in Ghana and Africa at large.

Dr Mensah said there was the need to improve upon emergency care at the hospital, which was key to service delivery and as such appealed for support in order to expand the accident and emergency care units of the hospital with the installation of an oxygen production unit to augment oxygen supply.

He also said the hospital needed some information technology equipment for monitoring and to also improve services.

Capacity building

For his part, the Indian High Commissioner to Ghana, Mr Sugandh Rajaram, called for an improved relationship between health workers in Ghana and India in order to improve the gains made in the sector.

He said Ghana stood to benefit tremendously in the area of capacity building in specialist areas of the sector and the improvement of information technology in quality healthcare delivery.

“We will take the necessary steps in this regard starting from capacity building and will be very happy to work with you to see that some of your doctors and healthcare specialists go to India for certain short and long-term scale up courses in terms of certain specialties,” he assured.

He indicated that the healthcare sector was one of the priority areas in the India- Ghana relations and as such it would be a delight to work with the Ho Teaching Hospital.

Mr Rajaram called for more avenues to strengthen the spirit of care that Indian specialist gynaecologist, Dr Uma Sen, who spent her entire career working in Ghana, inculcated in the hospital and throughout the region to ensure that her memory was cherished.