Accra, April 29, GNA - Major General P.A. Blay, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), has charged soldiers to remain steadfast and uphold the code and ethics of the Ghana Armed Forces by exhibiting the highest sense of professionalism in the discharge of their duties. Major General Blay gave the task when addressing a durbar of soldiers and civilian employees during his maiden visit to 37 Military Hospital on Tuesday to enable him to obtain first hand information of conditions at the hospital.

He said the military command was aware of the challenges facing the hospital and had embarked on frantic effort to improve the conditions at the hospital and charged the personnel to contribute their quota to uplift its good.

Major-General Blay assured service personnel and their civilian counterparts that the military high command was making efforts to provide drugs and other medical facilities to improve health delivery in medical facilities throughout the garrisons. The CDS urged service personnel to desist from acts that could put their lives at risk and save resource and finance made available to them. They should always adopt good eating habits to stay healthy at all times.

Major General Blay commended the civilian employees of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) for their hard work, dedication and cordial relationship between the military personnel and the civilian employees. He thanked the Commander of the 37 Military Hospital, Brigadier General J.N. Wadhwani, for the effort at improving the conditions at the hospital.

Responding to questions on salaries of civilian employees, the CDS said the GAF was doing everything possible to improve upon the salaries of the civilian employees of GAF and urged them to exercise restraint until the single spine salary structure being implemented by the government became operational.

Brigadier General Wadhwani briefed the CDS on some of the challenges facing personnel, which included inadequate medical staff, logistics, transportation, security for the hospital and lack of adequate laboratory equipment.

He hinted that the hospital was setting up a team of specialists, doctors, officers and housemen who would be responsible to soldiers who reported at the military polyclinic on out-patient basis. The CDS also visited the Armed Forces Central Band and Base Ordnance Depot (BOD).