New maternity unit for Akateng Health Centre

The Japanese Organisation for International Cooperation for Family Planning (JOICEF), an International non-governmental organisation, has handed over a maternity unit to the management of the Akateng Health Centre and the Ghana Health Service (GHS) at a ceremony at Akateng in the Upper Manya Krobo District of the Eastern Region.

The new maternity block has a delivery room, an Out Patient Department (OPD), waiting room, examination room, labour and dining room, prenatal room, lying-in room, midwife’s office and a store room.

It was fully funded by SHIONOGI Pharmaceuticals a Pharmaceutical Company in Japan and the project was executed by JOICEF in collaboration with the GHS.

Maternity waiting house

In February this year, the same company built a maternity waiting house for the health centre which enables pregnant women who are expected to give birth from Akateng and its surrounding areas and those living over banks of the Volta River to come and stay and when their time is due, they go to the maternity unit.

Antenatal and postnatal

The Country Director for JOICEF, Emmanuel Obeng noted that his organisation realised that the Akateng Maternity Centre was small and because of the increasing number of antenatal and postnatal and even large delivering cases, there was the need to construct a new maternity block for the health centre.

He said even though work began in August this year, the contractor did quality work and was able to complete it on time.

Mr Obeng said JOICEF and SHIONOGI expected that women, especially in the Akateng and other beneficiary communities would patronise the facility so that it would contribute to reducing maternal mortality, child mortality and even infant mortality, adding.

‘’With this facility handed over, more and more women will have access to maternal and child health services at Akateng’’.

Quality care

‘’We also believe that with this infrastructure, quality of care or quality of maternal child health services will improve’’, Mr Obeng said.

The Medical Superintendent of the Asesewa Government Hospital in the Upper Manya Krobo District, Dr Theodore Dovlo, who deputised for the acting Director for the Asesewa Government Hospital, Dr James Avoka, was full of gratitude to JOICEF and SHIONOGI Pharmaceuticals for their unwavering commitment and dedication in championing health issues, especially about women and children at Akateng and Upper Manya Krobo at large.

A midwife of the Akateng Health Centre, Emefa Adzo Atakpa in an interview with the Daily Graphic, said the maternity waiting house, inaugurated in February this year, recorded 86 births as of the time of handing over the new facility to the centre.

She said previously, the small maternity ward was so small that it became very difficult to deliver two pregnant women at the same time, adding ‘’This new infrastructure has brought us a lot of space, equipment, beds that even if two women are in labour, we can conveniently attend to them’’.

The District Chief Executive for Upper Manya Krobo, Joe Sam lauded the benefactors and said the handing over of the new maternity unit was a testament to the resolve and commitment of JOICEF and the SHIONOGI Group to support the Akateng Community and beyond in the provision of the requisite infrastructure to promote health care for the people.