Ghana as a country has made a major stride in providing and improving access to healthcare. The quality of healthcare in our country is still a major factor that successive governments have fallen short. Our health sector plays a key role in our development as a nation. Each individual has the right to a proper healthcare.
Ghana has made significant efforts in developing guidelines, policies and conducting in-service training. Supervision, monitoring and evaluation have also received attention. However, less effort of our health sector has been made in developing processes and systems and involving communities and service users.
Ghana National Gas Company Limited, under the leadership of Dr. Benjamin K D Asante, has made it a point to offer assistance in the area of health to the good people of Ghana and to ensure that, the Gas company provides a good health sector that can cater for all.
The Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Ben KD Asante, arguably the most accomplished gas sector manager and engineer Ghana has ever produced, is a man who has quietly overseen the transformation of one of the country’s most vital public corporations.
The country’s health sector has not been the best and this did not start today. Ghana has had good and bad health situations and successive governments have tried to solve and do their best. I read that in 1874 Ghana was officially proclaimed a British colony. Ghana proved to be an extremely dangerous disease environment for European colonists, driving the British Colonial Administration to establish a Medical Department and bringing about an introduction to a formal medical system, consisting of a Laboratory Branch for research, a Medical Branch of hospitals and clinics, and the Sanitary Branch for public health centered near British posts and towns.
The World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund were active in providing money and support to provide additional western medical care in Ghana. They provided, “financial and technical assistance for the elimination of diseases and the improvement of health standards.” Traditional health practices were not recognized by these initiatives or the British Medical Department in urban areas and were shunned by Christian missionaries in rural areas. However, traditional priests, clerics, and herbalists still remained important health providers especially in rural areas where health centers were scarce.
Today, governments, philanthropists, organizations, individuals, just to mention a few, have tried and still trying to provide the people of this country the best and needed health assistance to make sure the health sector will be equipped enough for Ghanaians. Can the government alone provide all the health assistance we need in Ghana? Should the health sector infrastructure be left for central government alone?
These questions can go on and on for years. Ghana National Gas Company believes that, a healthy nation provides a healthy people and that, the nation’s resources will benefit every Ghanaian. The vision of Dr. Asante, the board and management of Ghana Gas is that the company will be able to reach communities that need help and assistance at all times.
A good health contributes greatly to achieving national goals and objectives and consequently, the Government of Ghanaian has, over the years, made efforts to achieve ‘Good Health for All’ through various programmes which include the Community/Village Health Workers Initiative, Primary Health Care and the National Health Insurance Scheme.
A CHPS Compound, bungalows for nurses and doctors, health centers, laboratories, hospital equipment, support for people and other health activities etc, are key to the company’s radar and will continue to catch the eye of the Gas Company. Eastern, Ashanti, Savannah, Northern regions, Construction of modern CHPS Compound at Bomeng, Sekyere Kumawu district in the Ashanti Region, West Gonja District, Savannah, have seen the construction of a modern CHPS Compound with fully furnished at Broto.
In the Eastern Region, the Akuapem North District has seen the construction of a maternity ward for both parents and children since health services in and around rural areas cannot be compared to what we have in our cities. Central Region, Mampong municipal have received a modern CHPS Compound at Assin Kruwa, where women will receive health assistance. Northern Region’s Mamprugu Moagduri has seen a construction of a modern CHPS compound and one-bedroom semi-detached residential accommodation at Licha for the health workers which will reduce their burden of searching for accommodation for health workers. Not forgetting Savelugu Municipal, also in the Northern Region with a modern CHPS compound and one-bedroom semi-detached residential accommodation at Kadia.
Abuakwa South in the Eastern Region of Ghana has seen the construction of doctors quarters for the Kibi Government Hospital while Abura-Asedu-Kwamankese in the Central Region has also benefited from a Ward for Abrakrampa Health Center. The Gas Company is doing all this to reduce the burden on the central government.
A renovation work on the medical superintendent bungalow of the Half Assini Government Hospital in the Western Region is ongoing. At the Sunyani University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR), the school has acquired a land for the construction of a 200-bed hospital that will serve both the students and the community at large. The Gas company has released monies for the work to start before the year ends.
A construction of a multipurpose central laboratory complex at KNUST is ongoing at the sponsorship of the Gas company. Nanton in the Northern Region has benefited from a construction of Nurses’ quarters which will ease the pressure on nurses and even motivate others who have been posted to that part of the Region. Construction of a clinic and a doctors’ bungalow at Suhum in the Eastern Region is aimed at servicing the community and its environs.
A trauma center is a comprehensive regional resource that is a tertiary care facility central to the trauma system. A trauma center may refer to an emergency department without the presence of specialized services to care for victims. Ghana Gas’s trauma center at Atuabo will be capable of providing total care for every aspect of injury – from prevention through rehabilitation. At Atuabo, where Ghana Gas’s plant is sited, the Gas company in its vision has started the construction of a trauma center, the biggest in the region if not the biggest in the country that will cater for situations such as serious injuries, falls, motor vehicle collisions or gunshot wounds and victims of major traumas in general.
Ghana Gas’s contribution to the health sector in Ghana is still ongoing and making sure all unfinished health projects will be completed for the good people of Ghana. Ghana Gas will continue to support the government to realize its dream of giving the best quality healthcare to Ghanaians.
By Romeo Oduro