Ghana gets Spanish support for hospitals...Daily Graphic (Back Page)..Friday May 30/08

Story Rebecca Quaicoe Duho

GHANA has received 10 million euros worth of hospital equipment in loan from the Spanish government to help improve health facilities in some hospitals in the country.
Seventy per cent of the equipment have so far been distributed to various hospitals including the Tamale Teaching Hospital in the Northern Region, which received the highest of 1.7 million euros worth of equipment, while the Effia Nkwanta Government Hospital in the Western Region also received 900,000 euros worth of equipment.
They include generators, imaging equipment, blood bank fridges, delivery suit equipment, tertiary theatres, neonatal intensive care equipment, theatre recovery equipment, sterilisers, gas cylinders and laundry equipment.
A total of 57 hospitals in some newly created districts will also benefit from mortuary, laundry, theatre, maternal and laboratory equipment, while 31 district hospitals and the Tamale and Korle Bu Teaching hospitals are also benefiting from the installation of outdoor medical gas cylinders.
The Minister of Health, Major Courage Quashigah (retd), yesterday received the remaining 30 per cent of the equipment from the Spanish Ambassador to Ghana, Ms Julia Olmo, in Tema.
He said the loan facility, which has a 35 per cent grant component, was aimed at replacing obsolete and broken-down equipment in some of the country’s hospitals.
Major Quashigah said the government was working at providing free delivery services to pregnant women to reduce the maternal mortality rate in the country.
The Project Manager of the Spanish Protocol II project at the MOH, Dr Nicodamus Gebe, said the project, which is in three parts, was aimed at addressing specific areas in hospital care.
He said the first part was the upgrading of facilities at the Tamale and Effia Nkwanta hospitals, the second part was to address the issue of replacing bottled medical gas at 33 hospitals with outdoor gas with the third part being the provision of mortuary, laundry, theatre, maternal and laboratory equipment for 57 newly created district hospitals.
Dr Gebe, who is also the departmental head of the Biomedical Engineering Unit of the MOH, said the equipment also came with an international and local training component, which, he said, would start in September 2008.