Contractors working on the $250 million Greater Accra Regional Hospital are yet to hand over the facility.
This is in spite of the fact that, former President John Mahama inaugurated the project on October 30, 2016.
The situation has made authorities at the facility raise eyebrows over the seeming delay, but officials at the Ministry of Health (MoH), say its experts were still verifying the equipment and facilities in the refurbished hospital.
According to the Public Relations Officer of the MoH, Mr Tony Goodman, explained that the inspection is to ensure that, work by the contractors was executed to specification.
He also indicated that, the date for the handing over of the facility to the MoH is March, 2017.
Defects
The Medical Director of the facility, Dr Thomas Winsoum Anabah, told the Daily Graphic in an interview that, some of the equipment installed did not come with spare parts, especially those that would require frequent replacement. There are also no service manuals for some of the equipment.
He said during the inauguration last year, two timers could not be located in the parasitology and immunology laboratories.
Other issues of concern are about the colour of work benches at the laboratory. The black colour could make it difficult to detect and identify spillage easily.
There are also uninstalled gas connections for the bunsen burners.
Dr Anabah further mentioned the lack of instruments for the various specialist units such as General Surgery, Neurosurgery, Paediatric Surgery, Urology, Thoracic, Trauma and Orthopaedics units.
He said the Radiology Unit had requested that the PASCH computer, which was in grey scale, be replaced with a coloured one since having one grey scale would not be beneficial to their work.
There are also lack of urine bottles, oxygen cylinder for emergency beds, difficulty in the manual handling of some beds and table over beds which the director said were not properly assembled.
There have also been concerns over blood/fluid warmers using cassettes because a non-availability of the cassettes would render the warmers useless.
The CO2 cylinder installed for the Endoscopy Tower at the Urology Unit was too small and needed backups.
“During an inspection of the facility by former President John Mahama prior to its inauguration, we requested that the whole building should be networked to do away with the old-fashioned folder system to provide effective services, but only portions of the building have UPS,” Dr. Anaba added.
He said the staff accommodation, kitchen and mortuary have also not been completed. “There are certain facilities they have to install in these buildings, but the contractors are asking us to install them ourselves,” he stated.
MoH
However, Mr Goodman stated that, the MoH had not signed any takeover notes with the Hospital for it to manage the facility.
He said the former President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, only did a ceremonial inauguration of the project to allow for technical experts from the MoH and the contractors to work together to correct any defect on the project.
The officer said it was only after the defects had been corrected that the project could be technically handed over for use.
Mr Goodman said the contractors were still at site and were working with other service providers to validate the building, as well as equipment.
He explained that as part of the project, some staff were still on training in the United States of America and France.
The officer therefore assured that, the hospital would be put to use as soon as all the technical details had been completed.
He therefore asked that, concerns about the project should be directed to the MoH Capital Investment Unit for redress.
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