General News of Tuesday, 25 September 2018
Source: citinewsroom.com
2018-09-25
The Ofankor Medical Centre has began operations
Months of intense media reports on abandoned health facilities particularly from Citi FM, has led to the partial operationalization of the Ofankor Medical Centre.
Now residents of the area can heave a sigh of relief as the facility has been opened to the public, and started receiving patients on Monday, September 24, 2018.
The project, which was completed two years ago with funding from the African Development Bank, was abandoned over lack of equipment.
The acting Medical Superintendent of the Centre, Dr. Victor Caesar, said they operate from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm.
He said efforts are being put in place to boost their human resource base and bring on board additional medical equipment before they can operate fully.
“What we are doing now is OPD. We are running from 8 am to 4 pm. So we will do this for a couple of weeks or months and then when we get the human resources and additional equipment we will run fully. Currently, we have just skeletal staff that we are working with that is why we are not running 24 hours. So when we get the human resources and equipment, it will allow us to do phase two which will include extending to 12 or 24 hours. Then it means we will be doing admissions and deliveries. We currently do antenatal and postnatal care for our pregnant women in addition to the OPD and emergency.”
“We do not have all the things we need. There are structural re-engineering we need to do to make the place fully operational which we will do over time. There are plans to equip the hospital fully. I’m sure it will be included in the next budget, this time it wasn’t’ in the budge,” he added.
Some of the residents were elated about the opening.
“We are happy because we don’t have to travel too far to seek medical care,” one of the residents said.
Background
The Ofankor health facility was part of the Awoshie-Pokuase road project.
It was abandoned after completion due to lack of facilities.
Citi FM together with pressure group, Occupy Ghana subsequently petitioned government to have the facility and other ones abandoned nationwide operationalized.
Due to Citi FM’s advocacy, the government decided to operationalize the facility.
Citi FM’s advocacy also saw the operationalisation of the University of Ghana Medical Centre.