{"id":96801,"date":"2015-03-05T18:10:04","date_gmt":"2015-03-05T18:10:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=96801"},"modified":"2015-03-05T18:10:04","modified_gmt":"2015-03-05T18:10:04","slug":"eye-on-sotnghana-follow-up-on-kumawu-hospital-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2015\/03\/eye-on-sotnghana-follow-up-on-kumawu-hospital-project\/","title":{"rendered":"[Audio]: Eye on #SOTNGhana: Follow up on Kumawu Hospital project"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eye on the State of the Nation is a Citi FM<\/strong>\u00a0initiative aimed at tracking the various projects President John Mahama mentioned in his State of the Nation Address in Parliament.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0spotlight is on the construction of a district hospital at Kumawu in the Ashanti Region.<\/p>\n

President Mahama in his address announced the construction of some 13 district hospitals across the country<\/p>\n

He stated that “Additionally, work is at various stages of completion on 13 district hospitals to bring health services closer to our people.\u00a0 These include 120-bed facilities at Dodowa, Fomena, Kumawu…”<\/p>\n

Citi FM’s Ashanti Regional correspondent, Loretta Timah was at the site and noted that\u00a0only earthworks have been completed at the site.<\/p>\n

Just\u00a0about 50 workers were on site doing major pipeline works which is expected to be completed on Friday.<\/p>\n

The project comes at a time when all 10 health facilities in Kumawu, the capital of Sekyere Afram Plains in the Ashanti Region cannot adequately meet the health needs of the inhabitants of the district.<\/p>\n

The 120 bed facility project awarded to NMS infrastructure, a Britsh firm, will have an emergency unit, maternity wards, pediatric sections and a centre for diagnosis.<\/p>\n

According to the Site Administrator, Samuel Ani, the project is about 30% complete.<\/p>\n

“The major work is what we are doing, after this stage the rest are just filling in the sizes and we are done. The major works is the earthworks and fixing the pipes,” he said.<\/p>\n

Mr. Anni assured of meeting the deadline, November 2015. “I know we have 12months to complete it all, which i am sure we can. Looking at what is happening at Dodowa I\u2019m very sure we are going to complete this one, by the end of 12 months, it will be done.”<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the District Health Director, Dr. Justice Thomas Sevelo has expressed excitement about\u00a0the project.<\/p>\n

“It is definitely going to take care of a lot of problems that are currently very difficult to handle, for example, the absence of a medical officer will be a thing of the past if the hospital starts because definitely we will have to bring in medical officers to operate the hospital, and care that comes with the presence of a medical officer will be taken care off,” he said.<\/p>\n

In a related development, the Kumawu district health directorate has devised means to put referral systems in place in case of emergencies.<\/p>\n

The district has no ambulance unit to take care of emergencies. The health directorate therefore has instituted both the tele-medicine service for facility-to-facility referral systems, and the 4-taxi-driver system for community to facility referrals.<\/p>\n

“The next aspect is the community to facility referral system where every community is having not less than registered 4 taxi drivers which we know, and if there is any emergency at night, that taxi driver who is stationed at night in that community takes the client without negotiating for fare, bring the client to our facility for care, and then arrangement is made by the health facility to get the driver his money from the relatives after the patient has been taken care of, to ensure that at least we reduce the consequences of emergencies in the districts.”<\/p>\n

Listen to the audio to get updates on the project.<\/p>\n