Tema, Ghana, July 20, 2018//-MTN Ghana on Friday, July 20, 2018 handed over fully furnished maternity block to the Tema General Hospital to ease congestion at the government health facility.
The telecoms company through its MTN Ghana Foundation built the plush maternity block from scratch at the cost of about 5.5 million Ghana cedis.
The 40-bed maternity block is expected to benefit over 22,000 women in Tema and its environs annually.
The state-of-the-art maternity facility which was started in November 2016 to commemorate MTN Ghana’s 20th anniversary, comprises a 40-bed first stage ward, a bed lying-in ward, delivery beds, one theatre, two consulting rooms, two doctors’ offices, nurse office, nurse station and changing rooms, kitchen, among others.
Speaking the commissioning ceremony of the maternity block, the elated Chief Executive Officer of MTN Ghana, Selorm Adadevoh, said: “This is the single most valuable investment that has been made by the MTN Ghana Foundation and highly commendable. The facility is expected to impact about 22,000 women annually”.
“We expect that the facility will make the lives of our expectant mothers and staff a whole lot brighter, in line with the MTN’s mission statement.
It is our fervent hope that finding accommodation in this facility will no longer be a challenge and that 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.
The genesis of the plush maternity block
A Board Member of the MTN Ghana Foundation, Prof Plange Rhule noted: “MTN Ghana Foundation’s decision to build the maternity block for the Tema General Hospital was triggered by a television news item which highlighted the struggle that hospitals like Tema General Hospital face”.
The Foundation team, he said subsequently followed up and confirmed the need with the hospital authorities after which a proposal was submitted to the MTN Ghana Foundation board for consideration.
The Tema General Hospital is the third largest in Ghana after Komfo Anokye and Korle Bu teaching hospitals. As regards deliveries in 2017 alone, the hospital delivered over 7,000 babies.
Records indicate that over 22,261 pregnant women visited the hospital in 2017 and this is why the previous maternity ward with 10 beds could not cater for the increasing number of patients who came to the hospital, Prof Rhule said.
“The board deliberated extensively on this project, considering the size of the project and the amount of money involved. After careful consideration and given the enormous benefits that this project would bring to the nation, the board approved the project.”
To make this happen, the board made a decision to slow down on the roll out of smaller health projects for a period of time to enable us meet this very important national needs”.
The project finally commenced on the 9th November 2016 and in the space of one and half years, the facility has been completed and is being handed over to the hospital authorities today, Prof Rhule added.
“Anyone who works within the health sector can truly appreciate how such a facility can transform the quality of care given to patients. This medical facility will turn around the story of the Tema General Hospital maternity unit which previously had the negative reputation of congestion, a system of Medical Phone Call Answering will be added to better customer service”.
Use 10% of the your budget for maintenance of the facility
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.
Besides bringing relief to and patients visiting the Tema General Hospital, the telco hopes that, the provision of the maternity block will help improve maternal and neonatal health in Tema and its surrounding communities, improve the quality of care, as well as help reduce Ghana’s maternal mortality rate which still remains high.
This is not the only major health project the Foundation has undertaken.
Over the years, the MTN Ghana Foundation has constructed and commissioned several projects aimed at improving maternal and child mortality across Ghana.
In total, the Foundation has invested in $ 4 million in 52 major health projects and this has impacted about 1.2 million lives. Putting all the Foundation’s projects together, the company has touched about 4 million lives directly and indirectly with 142 projects in education, health and economic empowerment. The overall cost of investment is about $13 million, according to the leading telecom service provider.
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