The lack of wards and beds at the Kpone Municipal Health Center often compels personnel to attend to male and female patients in one ward.
The situation also forces nurses to mount beds on the corridors of the facility to attend to patients who need immediate attention. Children are, sometimes, attended to in a small ward with five beds, originally meant for female patients.
Kpone has a population of about 120,000; however, the sorry state of the health center repels most patients to travel to either Ashaiman or Tema to access health care.
Despite the sorry state of the 22-year-old health center, it runs an Out Patient Service of about 120/130 patients daily.
Expectant mothers in critical conditions are usually transferred to the Tema General Hospital (TGH) on referrals, in view of the fact that the Kpone Municipal Health Center has neither a well-equipped delivery ward nor theatre. It has no ambulance either.
Sadly, most parts of the health facility are overwhelmed with dust as it has no cleaners to keep the place hygienic and David Dotse, Senior Administrative Officer of the Kpone Municipal Health Center, underscored that if the assembly and government do not act fast, the facility could close down.
The land space of the health center is seven acres, big enough to upgrade the facility into a polyclinic status.
It is amazing how the municipality is flooded with industries, which the Assembly could lobby to pool resources to rehabilitate and upgrade its only health facility to a modern status.
Some residents of Kpone told Awake News that they hardly access the area’s health center due to its poor state, though it is the only health facility in the municipality.
When there is an emergency which is above the capability of the Municipal Health Center, patients are conveyed in taxis to the Ashaiman Polyclinic or TGH, but the long vehicular traffic to their destinations, sometimes, ends them up losing the patient before arrival.
Before the speeding taxis are caught in the long vehicular traffic on their way to either Ashaiman or Tema, the ‘dying’ patient has to endure a long stretch of dusty bad road, which aggravates the condition of the patient.
Based on this background, the residents entreated government and the assembly to prioritise the health situation at Kpone.
By: Umar Sheriff/awakenewsonline.com