The abandoned uncompleted Maternity and Children’s Block at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Kumasi is to be completed at a cost of €155 million, the President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has announced.
The President, announced this when he cut the sod for the completion of the Maternity and Children’s Block which begun some 44 years ago.
The final works on the project will be financed by the Deutsche Bank, of Germany, and expected to be carried out within 36 months, to be undertaken by Contracta.
The state-of-the-art facility which will have Pediatrics, Gynecology and Obstetrics units, according to the President, will serve as a referral centre for twelve of the sixteen regions of the country.
The seven hundred and fifty bed capacity building, with outpatient areas for adults and children will contain ten operating theatres and diagnostic rooms, fully equipped with X-Ray, ultrasound, and mammography facilities.
It will also have an intensive care unit, a high dependency unit, isolation rooms and student lecture halls, with the capacity to provide catering services for staff, patients and students.
The President noted that the government had taken a comprehensive assessment of the project, which has stalled for over four decades in order to ensure that the necessary funds were secured to complete the facility.
These efforts led to the approval by Parliament, in 2019, of a €155 million loan to finish and equip the Maternity and Children’s Block of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.
As co-Chair of the Group of Eminent Advocates for the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, he stated that finalisation of the project is very dear to his heart, as it will have a positive impact on the country’s drive towards achieving the SDG targets under maternal and child health.
He reinforced the commitment of the government to provide access to healthcare to every Ghanaian, irrespective of their geographical location.
“That is the reason for embarking, on the development of eighty-eight district hospitals this year, ‘Agenda 88,’ to ensure every district has a district hospital, and seven regional hospitals for the seven regions that do not have one, all of which are to be done within a year,” he added.
He stressed that the rapid execution of policies, such as the ban on public gatherings, the closure of schools and borders, has resulted in the country’s low COVID-19 infection, hospitalisation and death rates, some of the lowest in Africa and the world and so entreated the public to observe the social distancing and enhanced hygiene protocols.
The construction of the Maternity and Children’s Block project begun in 1976, as part of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital Expansion Project but came to a standstill in 1979. It was reactivated in 1999, under the administration of the 1st President of the 4th Republic, His Excellency Jerry John Rawlings, but again stalled shortly afterwards.
In 2004, the administration of the 2nd President of the 4th Republic, His Excellency John Agyekum Kufuor, took it up, but, soon after his departure from office in January 2009, work on this project was discontinued, until the assumption of office of another NPP administration, the Akufo-Addo government, in 2017.
