IT is a fact that many of our public hospitals are unable to operate at their optimum. The reason is primarily due to the lack of adequate facilities and state-of-the-art equipment needed to enhance their operations.
THE fact is also that public hospitals that are well-resourced with modern facilities are in a better position to offer qualitative healthcare to patients. However, the situation is different in this country, especially where many of our public hospitals including the referral ones, like the teaching hospitals, lack basic health equipment, which invariably affect their operations.
IT is in the light of the above that Today is happy about the news of an Israeli Company’s interest to complete the forty-three-year-old abandoned Maternity and Children’s Block at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi. This Israeli firm in question is Mitreli Group of Companies.
MITRELI Group of Companies’ interest to complete the abandoned health facility at KATH came to the fore when managements of the Company and KATH together with the Ashanti Regional Minister, Simon Osei-Mensah, toured the project site recently. And it was during the tour that the leader of Mitreli Group of Companies, Gur Katz, expressed his group’s readiness to see the project through.
IN addition to completing the project, Mitreli has made it clear that when given the contract they will fully stock the facility with standard hospital equipment and give the necessary training to handlers of the facility.
“WE are ready to start work on this project to ease the age-long problems at the hospital. Even if this contract is given to us today, our company is ready to do a great job and it is a promise,” Mr. Katz is reported to have said.
IT is welcoming piece of news to learn that a foreign company is willing to complete a state project that has been deserted for over forty years. Is this not an indictment on us as a people and a nation?
MOST often the reason cited for the abandonment of an otherwise good project that will benefit Ghanaians is something that one finds difficult to understand. A change of government should never be allowed to truncate good and viable projects. This type of politicking is selfish and we as a people should kick against it.
THERE have been many viable projects around the country that were or have been abandoned by successive governments as if the funds used initially for those projects were not from public funds. At a time when the housing deficit in the country has been estimated to be over one million, we still see abandoned housing projects around the country simply because the government that started it is no longer in power.
The reason for this rather negative approach has been that the previous government will take credit when these projects are completed. But isn’t government about continuity?
DEFINITELY, government is about continuity, and it is about time that political parties in this country practicalised this by ensuring that good projects started by previous government are completed to benefit Ghanaians. Thus, it is heartwarming to hear the regional minister give the assurance that he will see to it that by the time he exits office the abandoned Maternity and Children’s Block at KATH will be completed. Mr. Minister, we want to assure you that this is a promise Today will hold you to your word.
WE have also been told by the regional minister that the situation at KATH is not the best. That, according to the regional minister, is because of the lack of space to accommodate patients. Patients, nursing mothers, we hear, are left with no option but to sleep on the floors and corridors of the hospital. Very disquieting indeed!
IT is on that note that Today urges government to facilitate the process of ensuring that the project is awarded to a contractor to ensure its completion. At least we know for a fact that its completion will serve useful purposes.
Join GhanaStar.com to receive daily email alerts of breaking news in Ghana. GhanaStar.com is your source for all Ghana News. Get the latest Ghana news, breaking news, sports, politics, entertainment and more about Ghana, Africa and beyond.
