MTN Ghana has constructed and handed over a fully furnished maternity block to the Tema General Hospital, to ease congestion at the health facility.
The telecoms operator, through its foundation, the MTN Ghana Foundation, built the plush maternity block from scratch at the cost of GH¢4.2 million.
MTN Foundation also equipped and furnished the maternity block, increasing the total cost of the project to GH¢5.5 million.
The project, which started in November 2016 to commemorate MTN Ghana’s 20th anniversary, is expected to benefit over 22,000 women in Tema and its environs annually.
The newly built facility has equipment including anaesthesia machine, diathermy machine, incubator, baby cot, patient monitors, infusion pump, and radiant warmer.
It also has a seven-bed monitoring and recovery ward, nurses’ station and changing rooms, sluice rooms, pantry and store, two consultation rooms, two doctors’ offices and restrooms, as well as nurses’ office and restroom.
The Chief Executive Officer of MTN Ghana, Selorm Adadevoh, speaking at the commissioning of the facility, said the project was necessitated by a news item which highlighted the struggle faced by the hospital to raise funds to complete its maternity ward.
The project, he said, would serve the growing health needs of the numerous pregnant women who visited the hospital annually for deliveries.
He was optimistic that the facility would improve maternal and neonatal health in Tema and its environs, as well as reduce the country’s maternal mortality rate, which remained high.
He noted that the facility is the single most valuable investment that has been made by MTN Ghana Foundation, and it expects that the facility will make the lives of expectant mothers and staff a whole lot brighter, in line with MTN’s mission statement.
“It is our fervent hope that finding accommodation in this facility will no longer be a challenge, and our expectant
and new mothers with their babies having to lie on the corridors at the mercy of the weather and mosquitoes will be a thing of the past,” Mr Adadevoh stated.
According to him, the foundation has invested $4 million in 52 major health projects alone, and this has impacted about 1.2 million lives.
Putting all the foundation’s projects together, he stated that the company has touched about four million lives directly and indirectly with 142 projects in education, health and economic empowerment, and the overall cost of investment is about $13 million.
A Board Member of the MTN Ghana Foundation, Professor Plange Rhule said one of the major challenges affecting the country’s healthcare delivery was its infrastructural deficit.
According to him, reports indicate that Ghana did not meet the 2015 Millennium Development Goals four and five, aimed at reducing child and maternal mortality.
The report explained that one of the reasons for the failure was the quality of healthcare delivery.
He said to ensure an effective management of the facility, management, together with the authorities of the hospital, would create a maintenance fund, and signed a maintenance agreement with suppliers after the expiration of the 12-month warranty period.
Dr Kwabena Opoku-Adusei, Medical Director, Tema General Hospital, commended the foundation for the support, in that the facility would cater for the increasing number of patients in the hospital.
He noted that the Tema General Hospital is the third largest in Ghana after Komfo Anokye and Korle Bu teaching hospitals, adding that the hospital in 2017 alone delivered over 7,000 babies, with over 22,261 pregnant women visiting the hospital in the same year.
On his part, the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Anthony Nsiah-Asare, charged the managers of the Tema General Hospital to use 10% of their budget for maintenance of the newly commissioned maternity block.
He used the occasion to thank MTN Ghana Foundation for its continuous and dedicated support in the provision of healthcare for the Ghanaian people.
A Deputy Minister of Health, Madam Tina Mensah appealed to the management of the hospital to take good care of the facility while the Deputy Minister of Communications, George Andah, commended MTN Ghana for investing in the lives of the people.
