Ho Municipal Hospital in deplorable state

Ho, Dec. 11, GNA - The Ho Municipal Hospital, which was built in 1925, is in a deplorable state as some of the wards have been closed down due to leakage in their roofs and shortage of staff, while the mortuary is completely broken down.

Dr. Kofi Gafatsi Normanmyo, Acting Medical Superintendent, announced this at an Open Day held in Ho on Monday.

He said a patient satisfaction survey conducted in June this year showed that there was great worry among its clients about the attitude of the staff towards them and the lack of quality health care service. Dr Normanyo explained, however, that quality health care was multi-faceted as it ranged from infrastructure through organizational structure to external influences that impact on the Hospital. He said the Hospital needed over a billion cedis to pay off its debts owed to suppliers including the Medical Stores adding that there was a delay in the re-imbursement of the cost of services the hospital had rendered to some categories of patients, which amounted to over a half of a billion cedis.

Dr Normanyo urged the government to reimburse the cost of the service to enable the Hospital to be rehabilitated. He announced that with internally generated funds the administrators of the Hospital were constructing a new mortuary to replace the old one.

Dr Normanyo said the Hospital would mobilize all available resources at its disposal to make some impart on the quality heath care delivery.

He said next year the Hospital would strengthen management structures to make for the harmonization and quality improvement, fine-tune its relationship with the Mutual Health Insurance Scheme and put in place research development programmes, adding that the Hospital would launch a Research Fund in 2007.

Dr Normanyo said the Hospital would establish a board to give guidance, control and support in the affairs of its management. Dr Andrew Arde-Acquah, Volta Regional Director of Health Service, said the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) would be increased from the present 15 per cent to 80 percent in the coming year to generate more funds for the development of the Hospital.

He urged communities in the municipality, benevolent organization, NGO's and individuals to support the development of the Hospital. Captain (Rtd) George Mfodwo, Member of Parliament for Ho Central donated ten million cedis from his share of the MPs Common Fund to supplement the construction of the new mortuary.

He announced that he was leaving no stone unturned to help replace the obsolete equipment at the Hospital, "some essential equipment were installed in the 1920's and we need to replace them to enable the Hospital to deliver."

Mr Kofi Dzamesi, Volta Regional Minister, in a speech delivered on his behalf assured the management of the Hospital that the government was ready to support the on-going rehabilitation at the hospital. He, however, urged the authorities to take immediate action to make available estimates of what needed to be done for prompt action to be taken. 11 Dec. 06