‘Sampa Government Hospital facilities overstretched’
The Sampa Government Hospital in the Jaman North District of the Brong Ahafo Region, which is a 70-bed facility, is being overstretched as a result of influx of patients.
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As of last Saturday when the Daily Graphic visited the hospital, the 18-bed Emergency Unit had about 60 meningitis patients, with most of them sleeping on mattresses in every available space.
For this reason, the Omanhene of the Suma Traditional Area in the Jaman North District, Odeneho Afram Oberempong III, has presented 20 students’ mattresses, sachets of Milo beverage and toiletries to the hospital to assist in the efforts to combat the disease.
Prior to that, the Jaman North District Assembly had also presented 30 students’ mattresses to the hospital to enable it to cope with the influx of patients with meningitis.
District Disease Control Officer
According to the Jaman North District Disease Control Officer, Mr Bismark Kwasi Dartey, even though some of the affected people had been treated and discharged, the hospital was still recording some cases of meningitis on a daily basis, and stressed that, the Jaman North District had currently been declared an epidemic area, as far as the outbreak of meningitis in the country is concerned.
He mentioned that the first case of the disease in the district came from Gyerene, a village on the Ghana-Cote d’Ivoire border, explaining that, “Our checks from the nearby district in Cote d’Ivoire just across the border, indicate that there was an outbreak of meningitis in the area, with 18 deaths”.
He said with the Jaman North District also sharing borders with the Tain District, a lot of measures were put in place to deal with cases of meningitis when the first case of Pneumococcal Meningitis was recorded in the Tain District, and this was done before the first case of the disease occurred in the district.
Mr Dartey explained that there was a reduction in meningitis cases as a result of intensive education programmes on radio stations in the area and during durbars in the various communities.
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Medical Superintendent
The Medical Superintendent of the hospital, Dr Emmanuel Teviu, said since the district recorded its first case of meningitis on January 28, 2016, the number had increased to 174 with three deaths, but emphasised that the occurrence rate was going down.
The doctor educated Odeneho Afram and his entourage about the disease and advised the people to cultivate the habit of drinking water regularly as a way of avoiding contracting the disease.
He appealed for more facilities and the expansion of existing ones at the hospital to ensure better health delivery by the staff.
Infrastructure
Presenting the items, Odeneho Afram said not much had been done to improve on the infrastructure at the Sampa Government Hospital to fit its status as a district hospital.
He, therefore, pleaded with the government to provide the necessary infrastructure to enable the hospital to function as the only referral hospital in the district.