The First Lady, Madam Rebecca Akufo-Addo will on Wednesday commission the new Paediatric
Intensive Care Unit at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.
The new facility consists of a 21-bed Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and a 20-bed Paediatric Intensive Care Unit.
The old children’s emergency ward has not seen any major refurbishment or expansion since the 1960s when it was built.
The unit’s total annual outpatient attendance is about 30,000 with 6,000 admissions and is the busiest children’s unit in the country.
The unit runs a 24-hour emergency service for critically ill children.
The new centre can boast of state-of-the-art facilities.
The Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) will include the following;
1. A central workstation for the nurses
2. Infectious diseases ICU with four incubators
3. Neonatal ICU with five incubators and five cribs
4. And an intermediate neonatal ICU room with seven cribs.
The Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) will consist of the following;
1. A central workstation area for the duty nurses
2. Toilet and bath facilities for the children including a disabled toilet facility
3. Isolation paediatric ICU room with one bed
4. Paediatric ICU room with five beds and a duty nurse desk and a high dependency unit room with fourteen beds and a duty nurse desk.
The rest of the facility also includes;
1. A clinical laboratory, clinical pharmacy and office
2. Main reception waiting area with visitors’ toilets including a disabled toilet
3. Staff rest area with toilets and bathrooms
4. Changing rooms
5. A staff training and meeting room
Green technologies that have been introduced into this new PICU building are
1. Solar geysers
2. A 48-panel photo-voltaic system with two inverters and battery storage
3. Water flow rate reducers on all taps and showers
4. Low water usage dual flush toilets
5. Double glazed aluminium framed windows and main access doors
6. Insulated steel doors, insulated concrete walls
7. 2mm thick multi-layered uPVC roof sheeting and Isotherm insulation blanket on the ceiling
8. All of which will help retain cool air that has been introduced into the building via the split air-conditioning units
9. The main air handling unit which controls both temperature and humidity.
There are integrated services that have been introduced into the building such as the fire detection and alarm system, CCTV system, access control system at critical doors and areas, nurse call system and data points at all PICU beds and staff and nurse stations.
