MTN Ghana, yesterday handed over an ultra modern 40-bed maternity block worth GH¢5.5 million to the Tema General Hospital (TGH).
The project constructed by the MTN Ghana Foundation, has a delivery ward, lying in ward, a theatre, nurses station and changing rooms, sluice rooms, two consulting rooms, restrooms, washrooms and reception.
It also has equipment such as theatre operating bed, anaesthesia machine, diathermy machine, incubator, baby cot, patient monitors, infusion pump, vital signs and radiant warmer, among others.
The project which started November 9, 2016 took one-and-a-half years to be completed.
Speaking at the ceremony, the vice chairman of MTN Ghana Foundation, Prof. Jacob Plange-Rhule, said the project was planned by the foundation to replace the seriously congested maternity ward in the TGH, after the problem was highlighted by a television news item.
A 2017 year record from the hospital showed that 22,261 pregnant women visited the facility and the hospital delivered over 7,000 babies. This put a lot of pressure on the facility making it difficult to cater for the increasing number of cases.
Prof. Plange-Rhule noted that in spite of its size and cost involved, the board approved the project because of the enormous benefit it would bring to the nation.
The chief executive officer of MTN Ghana, Mr Selorm Adadevoh, described the maternity ward, expected to benefit about 22,000 women annually, as the single most valuable investment made by MTN Foundation since it was set up 10 years ago.
“It is our fervent hope that finding accommodation in this facility will no longer be a challenge so that expectant and new mothers with their babies lying on the corridor at the mercy of the weather and mosquitoes will be a thing of the past,” he said.
He said altogether the foundation had invested $13 million in 142 projects in the areas of education, health and economic empowerment across the country which had impacted four million lives directly and indirectly.
Mr Adadevoh said to ensure adequate maintenance of the facility a fund has been created and a committee set up to handle it.
The Medical Director for TGH, Dr Kwabena Opoku Adusei, appealed to the government and corporate bodies to help complete the theatre, maternity and other projects which had been abandoned at the hospital.
The Deputy Minister of Health, Madam Tina Mensah, thanked MTN Ghana for the gesture
She made reference to World Health Organisation data which showed that maternal mortality ratio in Ghana declined from 760 per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 319 per 1,000 live births in 2015, adding that the figure was too high and needed to be improved.
She therefore appealed to other organisations to emulate the example of MTN Foundation and support government’s effort to improve the situation.
The Director General of the Ghana Health Services, Dr Nsiah Asare, said improving maternal and neonatal health was the priority of the GHS and urged users of the facility to compliment the gesture by MTN and improve customer care.
He called on the management of TGH to set aside at least 10 per cent of their budget for planned preventive maintenance and cautioned health workers to refrain from unethical behaviours.