Nsiana citizen embarks on hospital project for community
A 39-year-old citizen of Nsiana in the Amansie West District in the Ashanti Region, Mr Joseph Albert Quarm, popularly known as 'Prof. Quarm', has single-handedly embarked on the construction of a 120-bed hospital for the community as his personal contribution to making health care accessible to the people of the town and surrounding communities.
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Nearly GH¢2.3 million has so far been sunk into the GH¢4 million project, which is about 70 per cent complete.
The project, which will serve about 20,000 people in the area, will have, among other facilities, male, female and children's wards, six private wards, an outpatient department, an X-ray department, three theatres, a laboratory and consulting rooms.
Currently, the nearest health facility to Nsiana is the St Martin's Catholic Hospital at Agroyesum, a distance of about 40 km of bad road.
Positive impact
Speaking to the Daily Graphic during a visit to the project site on Holy Saturday, Mr Quarm, a businessman who owns the Prof. Quarm Publications, a leading science educational publishing firm in Kumasi, said he wanted to make a positive impact on the lives of his people, many of whom are subsistence farmers who live on meagre incomes.
"And one of the ways of realising this is through access to quality health," he said.
He said the project, which started about two years ago, would be completed in a year's time.
"By Easter next year I hope to see the birth of this hospital because all materials for its completion are ready," he said.
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Accommodation
Mr Quarm had decided to temporarily convert his newly completed 10-room private storey building close to the hospital into accommodation for doctors, pending the construction of a permanent residential accommodation for the doctors.
Management of the hospital
He said to ensure proper management of the facility, he planned to hand over the hospital to the Ghana Baptist Convention to run it, with the support of the community leaders.
"Initially, I had wanted to run it as my personal project but I had a second thought. I am a Baptist and I think there is nothing wrong handing the project over to the mission to run it, especially when the church which has hospitals in the country is capable of managing it," he said.
Mr Quarm said profit was not his motive for undertaking the project.
"I am not doing it for profit. The people here have suffered for far too long and I am in to help them get quality health service," he said.
He said a number of people had lost their lives in the area as a result of the lack of access to a health facility.
Galamsey connection
Mr Quarm, who expressed concern over continued illegal gold mining in the town, said apart from destroying the environment, the practice posed a serious health threat to the people.
"The next five years there may be a serious outbreak of diseases. If we don't have a good hospital here, the people are going to suffer," he said.
Other projects.
Mr Quarm is also constructing a KVIP for the town, which has no suitable place of convenience.