Dangme East District Hospital honours hardworking staff

Ada, Dec 20,GNA-Sixty-five employees of the Dangme East District Hospital (DEDH) at Ada, were at the weekend honoured for their meritorious service to the hospital with Mrs. Wilhelmina Dora Sarfowa, a nurse, emerging as the over-all best worker.

For her prize, Mrs. Sarfowa took home a citation, a 21-inch coloured Television set and a half piece of cloth, all valued at 400 Ghana Cedis, whilst the rest including midwives, nurses, and other paramedical staff, received special packages and citations.

Radio Ada, the local frequency modulation (FM) station, which was among the 65 award winners, received a special citation from management for giving the hospital free air time.

Speaking at the awards ceremony, Mr. Augustine Yaw Boamah, Deputy Greater-Accra Regional Director of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) in charge of Administration, urged health workers to embrace better work ethic since that was the surest way for the health profession to progress. Mr. Boamah, therefore, advised them to go about their normal duties with a high sense of discipline, punctuality, compassion and be God-fearing. The Deputy Regional Director disclosed that the GHS would soon roll out a customer care programme that would ensure that visiting patients and their relatives were well attended to.

Dr. Philip Kwaku Narh, Acting Medical Superintendent of DEDH, pointed out that the lifeline of every organization no matter its mission, was its human resource hence the need to recognize those make up its core. Dr. Narh explained that it was for this reason that the hospital partnered some key and benevolent members of the Ada Community to honour exceptional staff not only from the hospital, but also from the sub-districts.

He said the challenges facing the hospital which included inadequate residential accommodation around the hospital to house its critical staff; unwillingness of staff to accept postings to the hospital; and the hospital land which had not been properly acquired.

Dr. Narh was optimistic that the traditional authority would come to the aid of the hospital in finding workable solutions to those problems. Mr. Gabriel Dari, District Coordinating Director, said the District Assembly was very much aware of the challenges facing the hospital, but regretted that due to budgetary constraints, it had not been able to do much for the hospital.

Mr. Dari assured management that with a significant improvement in government resources, the Assembly would support the Department of Health with its development programmes to improve health delivery in the district. Recounting the background of the Awards Scheme, Mr. Philip Afeti Korto, an official of DEDH, said in September this year, management of the hospital appointed a five-member ad hoc awards committee to select dedicated, hardworking and deserving staff to be considered for awards.

Mr. Korto indicated that attitude towards work and clients; punctuality to work; quality of work output; willingness to perform extra duties when the need arose; ability to meet tight deadlines; and ability to take initiatives and implement them, were among the criteria for the selection of the deserving. 20 Dec 09