St. Joseph�s Hospital In Jirapa Celebrates 60th Anniversary

Dr Richard Wodah-Seme, Medical Director of the St. Joseph�s Hospital in Jirapa, has called on government to improve on the structures in the hospital. He said management of the hospital had kept faith with its planned preventive maintenance policy but some structures had had several renovations to the extent that they could no longer withstand any renovation. Dr Wodah-Seme made the call at the weekend during the 60th Anniversary celebration of the Hospital at Jirapa in the Upper West Region. The celebration was on the theme: �St. Joseph�s Hospital at 60, Building a Centre of Excellence in Healthcare Delivery�. Dr Wodah-Seme said the hospital�s maternity ward was sinking and they were, therefore, sitting on a time bomb. He said some structures that government was putting up, and which were near completion, had been abandoned for a very long time now. Dr Wodah-Seme mentioned inadequate human resource, encroachment on the frontage of the hospital and the impasse between Ghana Health Service and the Christian Health Association of Ghana as other challenges facing health delivery at the hospital. He described reimbursement from the National Health Insurance Scheme as �erratic and epileptic,� saying under such conditions it became extremely difficult to plan and even procure drugs and consumables to run the hospital. Dr Wodah-Seme said despite those challenges, the hospital had not faired badly in its clinical outlook, indicating that maternal mortality had seen a significant reduction. He said the hospital�s Voluntary Centre for Counseling and Testing (VCT) had been adjudged one of the best performing centres in the country. Dr Wodah-Seme also acknowledged the support of doctors from Germany and thanked Mr Paul Aryene, Ghana�s Ambassador to Germany, for supporting the hospital to establish a Urological Centre. He commended Dr Sir Godfrey Bacheyie and the Rotary Club for renovating the Children�s Ward and currently constructing a bathroom and a mothers waiting shade for the hospital. Mr Abu Kabiebata Kansanbata, Deputy Upper West Regional Minister, congratulated the management and staff of the hospital for their hard work which had culminated in the hospital being recognised as a renowned health delivery centre in the region and neighbouring Burkina Faso. He expressed the hope that the celebration would give them the opportunity to assess the successes and challenges of the hospital and find pragmatic solutions to them. The Deputy Regional Minister said government was working hard to address the human resource problem facing the health sector by establishing the Tumu and Nandom Midwifery Training Colleges and the Lawra Health Assistants Training School. Mr Kansanbata said the issue of the uncompleted structures at the hospital would be taken up by the Minister of Health to ensure the immediate completion of the Out Patients Department and Administration Block and the refurbishment of the Maternity Ward.