Put the new Ketu North hospital to use - Edudzi Tameklo to government

Member of the Legal and Communication teams of the National Democratic Congress(NDC), Godwin Edudzi Tameklo, has called on government to urgently put to use the newly constructed hospital in the Ketu North constituency to help save lives, especially in these pandemic times.

He said it is pertinent to put the hospital to use to reduce the unemployment deficit in the health sector and also to prevent the new facility from rot due to the lack of use, as has been seen in many abandoned government projects across the country.

Mr Tameklo said this in an interview with Johnnie Hughes on the New Day show on TV3, Wednesday, May 26.

He was speaking on the heels of the newly built hospital in the Ketu North constituency and inaugurated on 20th October 2020, which the Ghana Health Service has not found any use for yet since it was completed and the facility gathering dust at the expense of the taxpayer.

“I mean the point is, once taxpayer’s money has been invested in some of these facilities, it makes no sense that they are put where they are, put it to use. In fact, the last time there was a conversation about hospital beds, once you have this hospital, I’m sure the very good people of Ketu and other surrounding communities will have the opportunity to benefit from it,” he charged.

For his part, Dr. Bernard Okoe-Boye, former Member of Parliament(MP) for the Ledzokuku constituency said the lack of use for the newly built hospital can be due to operational hurdles that need to be cleared before it can be put to use.

He said “I just read that it was inaugurated in October 2020, so just a few months ago. Usually, when you finish the hospital, to operationalize it, there are a number of things you have to do, in terms of staff. There are two mechanisms that they normally use, if they have an old district hospital, they can move all the staff from the old to the new.

“But I don’t know the exact situation, if it’s the case that they didn’t have a district office then they have to virtually recruit or move workers from other facilities to the place but I will check for the facts of the situation,” he pointed out to the host.

The fully-equipped 60-bed facility in the Wheta District in Ketu North was commissioned by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on 22nd October 2020. The hospital project was built at the cost of 14.5 million Euros and was part of an 80 million Euro credit facility from the Raiffeisen Bank of Austria meant to construct six similar projects across the country.