In June 2018, the Ga West Municipality’s Health Director, Dr. Doris Arhin, told Citi News they have nurses and staff on standby to run the Ofankor health centre.
The health centre, which was constructed two years ago by the government with funding from the African Development Bank, has been closed to the public.
According to the Ga North Municipal Assembly, it is looking at spending some GHc1.2 million to operationalize the health centre.
The Municipal Chief Executive, Clement Nii Lamptey Wilkinson, in a Citi News interview in June also said the Centre would be operational by the first week of July 2018.
But when Citi News visited the facility after the first week of July deadline elapsed, janitors were seen busily on site cleaning the facility.
The OPD, Emergency and Administration blocks had been cleaned. Officials told Citi News that they are hoping to officially open the facility.
The name of the facility is also expected to be changed to Ga North Municipal Hospital.
We’re looking for money for Ofankor health centre – Agyeman Manu
Meanwhile, the Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman Manu, has said the government is in the process of sourcing for funds to undertake maintenance works on the Ofankor Health Center.
These works, he said, are crucial for the opening of the facility which has not been opened to the public, months after it was completed, with funding from the African Development Bank.
The center, if inaugurated will serve residents of the Ga West Municipality who have been seeking medical care elsewhere.
The Minister told Citi News the government is committed towards the operationalization of the Ofankor facility and other abandoned facilities across the country.
“We are looking for money to do some maintenance, to find equipment and to put in people to work there, so we are working on that. There are about seven or eleven of those facilities, about four or five of them within the northern zone of this country, it is not as simple as you think, but we are working on them,” he said.
Project abandoned due to inadequate equipment
Inusah Fuseini, the former minister under whose supervision the CHPS compound at Ofankor was started, had said operationalizing the facility delayed because of inadequate medical facilities.
According to him, the project was supposed to be stocked with equipment by the Ministry of Health. Mr. Fuseini said although the government has stocked the facility, he has information that the facility is not operational because the equipment is not enough.
Abandoned health facilities
The Ofankor health facility is part of numerous health facilities that although have been completed have not been functioning.
They include CHPS compounds at Tetegu and Teshie.
Citi FM subsequently put pressure on the government to have such facilities as operationalized.
Due to Citi FM‘s advocacy, the government recently decided to operationalize the $217 million University of Ghana Medical Centre which hitherto had been abandoned because of a tussle between government and management of the school over who is supposed to manage the facility.
–
By: Kojo Agyeman/citinewsroom.com/Ghana