Mills cuts sod at Legon for relocation of UGMS

Accra, March 12, GNA - President John Atta Mills on Saturday broke the ground for the construction of a building that would relocate the present University of Ghana Medical School from Korle Bu to Legon.

The building complex is being sited at the premises of the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research.

The project is made up of a teaching hospital complex, facilities for existing schools on Korle Bu campus and a new School of Biomedical Sciences.

President Mills assured the university authorities of Government's support to complete the project. "As a Government, we'll give you the fullest support," said President Mills, a Law Professor, who had lectured at the University of Ghana for more than 25 years.

"My doors are always open, we'll make sure to provide the resources and make the necessary contacts," President Mills said. He recalled having met the first batch of medical students in 1963 at Legon and the efforts made by the Government of the day to collaborate with the US to have the building put up, but to no avail. President Mills commended the University for getting the College of Health Sciences to be sited on Legon campus.

Professor Ernest Aryeetey, Vice Chancellor of the University, said the project would expand training in health facilities, increase specialized health services, reduce the burden and stress on Korle Bu Hospital and provide the human resource for the University of Allied Sciences, whose construction began recently in the Volta Region. He said a Relocation Implementation Committee made of prominent Ghanaian citizens, business people and faculty members, chaired by Rev Prof Seth Aryeetey, a former provost of the College of Health Sciences were seeing to the early relocation of the Medical School. The Vice Chancellor said when the project was completed, it would be capable of financing itself within the shortest possible time. Present at the sod cutting ceremony were Professor Justice Date Baah, Chairman of the University Council, Mr Kofi Annan, Chancellor of the University and former UN Secretary General, Mrs Betty Mould-Iddrisu, Minister of Education and Mr Robert Joseph Mettle-Nunoo, Deputy Minister of Health.