Why doesn’t the Afari Military Hospital function?

I stumbled onto a live broadcast of a hospital project that was being built in the Oti Region two weeks ago on GTV. Afari

I was surprised by the alleged infusion of fresh funding into a brand-new project at Kpassa in the Nkwanta North District, while other projects that were already finished or almost finished had been abandoned.

I’m referring to the Ashanti Region’s Ashanti Regional Hospital in Sawua and the brand-new military hospital in Afari.

Since I anticipate that these hospitals will provide high-quality care, I have been keeping up with your newspaper’s coverage of them.

The standard of the hospitals will rise as a result of the high-caliber equipment and amenities stocked at these institutions that you have documented in your reports.

I learned that the Kpassa project is one of the hospitals under Agenda 111 that are supposed to be built throughout the nation’s numerous districts.

Despite the noble purpose, the deed cannot be commended given that identical facilities have gone underused. Afari

Hospital operationalization

What is required to operationalize hospitals that are currently built or almost built?

I have worked in the Ashanti Region’s healthcare system for a significant amount of time, therefore I am aware of the strain that facilities and medical staff occasionally experience due to space limitations.

The no-bed syndrome, which some patients regrettably endure even at crucial stages of their diseases, is all too common in Ghana.

Some even pass away before they can recount their ordeal.

Such sad events are the reason I see building every type of medical institution as a worthwhile endeavor.

I have worked in the Ashanti Region’s healthcare system for a significant amount of time, therefore I am aware of the strain that facilities and medical staff occasionally experience due to space limitations.

The no-bed syndrome, which some patients regrettably endure even at crucial stages of their diseases, is all too common in Ghana.

Some even pass away before they can recount their ordeal.

Such sad events are the reason I see building every type of medical institution as a worthwhile endeavor.

The Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi can benefit from the 500-bed capacity of the Afari Military Hospital.

I’ve been reading about how close to completion it is for more than two years.

Finished work

Dr. Emmanuel Kwadwo Tenkorang, the director of Ashanti Regional Health, has acknowledged that the Sawua Hospital was entirely finished in 2021 and outfitted with all infrastructure and equipment within the contractor’s scope of work.

He said that the two-kilometer access road and the provision of utility infrastructure and services to the hospital were all that remained.

It is depressing that a ceremony was held to celebrate a hospital under construction when other ones that were complete or almost complete have been left unutilized with the concomitant risk of the structures deteriorating in no time as happens to any idle building.

If the Afari hospital was 95 percent complete in August 2022, as stated by Deputy Minister of Defence, Kofi Amakwa-Manu, in a radio interview, there can be no justification for not getting the contractor to finish the remaining work after more than a year.

At present, inflation and the exchange rate must have eroded the value of whatever is owed to the contractor.

Should the cost increase, it adds up to the burden of the citizenry and we must blame ourselves for it.

The writer, Percy Amoah is a Health worker in the Ashanti Region.

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