It is shameful the Kpone-Katamanso Assembly and the Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency cannot provide two simple needs to a small health post in their area.
In the Nmlitsakpo Electoral Area is a small forty-footer container converted into a health post with a concrete extension at the frontage.
The facility has always been the first point of call for over 20,000 residents from Bediako, Sacky and parts of Gulf City, when the need for urgent healthcare calls before, when the condition becomes critical, are rushed to the Tema General Hospital.
Sadly, the Nmlitsakpo health post, under the management of the Kpone-Katamanso Municipal Health Directorate, is neither connected to the national grid nor has a washroom for the health personnel and patients who access the place.
These, the personnel told Awake News are affecting healthcare delivery.
The facility has fully been wired and what is left for the KKMA and MP to do is to get the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) connect electricity to it, and this has been over a year now, the personnel complained.
The Nmlitsakpo Electoral Area health post
Awake News contacted the Assemblyman for Nmlitsakpo Electoral Area, Isaac Newton Tetteh on the matter and not oblivious of the sad developments at the health post, added that the facility has no water supply so the personnel there spend their own income to purchase water from standpipes for their work.
“Other times, neighbours’ benevolence keeps the staff here,” Isaac Newton Tetteh added.
The absence of electricity at the health post, he explained compels the nurses to travel daily, to and from Kpone, Ashaiman, Michel Camp, which are close towns with hospitals, to store vaccines and medicines for use the next day.
Knowing how important connecting the health post to the national grid is, Mr Tetteh said he personally acquired permit from the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), where he was requested to get the Energy Commission to inspect the structure for advice.
“When the Energy Commission came to assess the facility, it advised that the structure be rewired. To get that done, GHc4,000 was invested in the rewiring,” he affirmed.
Having expended that much in getting the facility ready for electricity supply to save nurses the daily hussles of travelling to and fro to health facilities to store their vaccines and medicines, the Assemblyman said the ECG said another permit from the Assembly was needed to power the health post.
Till date, he said he could not understand why the Assembly or the Health Directorate is not ready to grant permit for the health post to get electricity supply.
“I am an Assemblyman at the KKMA and it is sad that the Municipal Health Directorate cannot get a permit for its own structure. In fact, the health post is very important to me and my electorate. The facility needs electricity badly to administer basic health care to us,” Mr Tetteh said.
The nurses at the health post report to work late as they have to always pass by the facility where they stored their medicines and vaccines the previous day, and to residents who report at the health center early to receive health care, the nurses are not committed to work.
But on the contrary especially because he is privy to the challenges the nurses have had to endure to get to work, Isaac Newton Tetteh appealed to residents to bare with the nurses as he pushes the KKMA to grant permit to the ECG to supply electricity to the facility.
He stressed, “The Assembly, Health Directorate and MP should be able to assist this small facility with a fitting washroom and water supply to prevent the nurses from the daily embarrassment of going to beg residents to use their washrooms and fetch water for their work.”
By: Umar Sheriff Musah