KATH hostel for patients relatives ready by June
Work on the 190-bed hostel facility for relatives of patients at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi is expected to be ready by the end of June this year.
The facility, which is being built under a build, operate and transfer (BOT) arrangement, is to provide accommodation for the relatives of patients of the hospital and stop them from using the hospital compound as a sleeping area.
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During an inspection of the facility by the management of the hospital last Friday, the Chief Executive Officer of KATH, Dr Oheneba Owusu-Danso, said even though it was not the responsibility of the hospital to provide accommodation for the relatives of patients, “we have to consider our socio-cultural setting and the fact that some of the patients are referred from other regions.”
Facility
When completed, he said the facility would have accommodation for all sectors of society from those in the high echelon to those at the bottom.
This, he said, was to ensure that everyone was catered for and no one would have any excuse for sleeping on the compound.
“Besides that, when it is completed, we will instruct the security not to entertain anyone on the compound again”, he said.
According to Dr Owusu-Danso, the hospital environment was not conducive for people to be sleeping in the open.
Challenges
Dr Owusu-Danso said the main challenge facing the hospital at the moment was space for further expansion.
According to him, out of the five teaching hospitals in the country, KATH had the least of lands and this was affecting its expansion.
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He said even the contractor working on the new Maternity and Baby Unit (MBU) being built was requesting more land to build a waste management treatment plant to treat the waste and for the drainage system of the hospital.
He said the current land would require more energy and equipment if the plant had to be included at the site.
Consequently, he said management of the hospital had written to the Asantehene and the military command to cede part of their lands to the hospital.
According to him, this would require the relocation of some of the military installations close to the hospital and one of the installations likely to be affected included one of the basic schools there.
Other projects
Other projects inspected included the first Assisted Reproductive Technology Centre (ARTC) in any public health facility in the country.
When completed, the centre would help couples with fertility issues to conceive or have kids at a cheaper cost.
The GH¢450,000 facility is currently behind schedule due to structural issues and is expected to be completed by the end of the second quarter of the year.
Currently, all the facilities offering that service are privately owned.
Already, three doctors from the hospital have returned from training abroad where they specialised in the provision of assisted reproductive therapy.