Accra, Feb. 22, GNA - The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Korle= -Bu Teaching Hospital, Prof Nii Otu Nartey on Monday said significant progress has been chalked in making the hospital a paperless one. He said the piloting of the Local Area network for surgical, child health, the medical block and the polyclinic was ongoing, adding that phase-one of the E-project would be completed in April while the second phase is expected to start by the end of the year.

Speaking at the 2010 annual review of the hospital in Accra, he said Korle Bu was still the leading and preferred referral hospital in the country and had been voted as the best training institution by the West Africa College of Physicians and Surgeons has for the past three years. He, therefore, called for support to maintain its leadership position. Under the review year, the hospital successfully completed the Medical Block at the cost of GHc2.2 million, Cell Biology Laboratory at one million dollars, phase one of the reproductive health centre at $500,000 and the ground floor of the Administration block for the Reconstructive Plastic surgery and burns centre at one million dollars.

Besides the capital-intensive projects, Management also stepped up it= s efforts to improve staff-patient relationship by inaugurating an Ethics and Professionalism committee to address issues of infraction on the rights of patients among other things.

Management in 2010 succeeded in granting greater financial and decision-making autonomy to various units of the hospital. This, the CEO said was being complemented with the reconfiguration of some departments to make resources readily available to them for patient care.

For this reason, Prof. Nartey said a new allied surgery sub-BMC which comprises the dental, ENT and the Eye Departments had been created in its formative stage.

In line with management's policy of introducing new services and technology for the delivery of care, a team of doctors at the Obstetrics an= d Gyneacology Department completed a two-year training course in the use of Laparoscopic (keyhole surgery) with assistance from Karl Stroz of Germany. He, therefore, called on individuals and corporate bodies to assist the hospital to acquire laparoscopic equipment. On beautification of the hospital, the CEO said it had acquired a mowe= r for weeding, while re-grassing of the compound was ongoing coupled with painting of the various departments and units.

According to the Hospital CEO, projects to be embarked upon this year include the new emergency centre at the cost $60 million, the Lions Club International eye centre at $3.5 million, expansion and re-equipment of the national radiotherapy centre at a cost of $6.6 million and the conversion o= f the central Out Patient Department at $1.2 million.

Funding for the first phase of the new emergency centre had been secured, he said, and added that the construction of a new eye Centre for the training of specialists from the West African sub-region will also begi= n later this year.

The project is being funded by Lions International and other charities from the UK. The Surgical Block would be re-located to the present Central Out Patient Department to create more space for both healthcare workers and patients, which would also handle both trauma and non-trauma adult emergencies, he said. With support from the Ministry of Health, the hospital would replace most of the equipment in theatres, the emergency and intensive care units.

To arrest the perennial water shortage, the hospital would be drilling boreholes and is also sourcing funding to expand the water reservoir from the current capacity of 500 to 2.5 million gallons when constructed and would enable it to rely on water for 5 days instead of the current one day. Prof. Nartey commended the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) for allocating GHc2.2 million for the acquisition of 13 lifts, and said tha= t the reimbursement had also been satisfactory.

He, however, appealed to the NHIA to negotiate new tariffs as soon as possible to meet current demands and noted that for an improvement in the reimbursement system, the pharmacy directorate of the hospital had commence= d the distribution of drugs to National Health Insurance card holders at the polyclinic. Answering questions from the press on the recent cholera outbreak, Dr. David Nii Nortey Nortey, Head of the Korle-Bu polyclinic, noted that the clinic had as at 0800 hours on Monday recorded 323 cases with four deaths and called for serious national response, urging residents to observed basi= c hygienic practices.