Jirapa Hospital gets Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

The Rotary Club of Windsor (1918), has commissioned a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at the cost of 200,000 dollars, for the Saint Joseph Hospital in Jirapa.

The project which is the first of its kind in the region, was partnered by the Rotary Club of Accra Ring Road Central and the Rotary Club of Jerusalem, which provided financial and technical support.

Madam Phoebe Balagumyetime, Jirapa District Director of Health Services, thanked Sir Dr. Godfrey S. Bacheyie and the Rotary Clubs both in Ghana and Windsor, for their enormous support to the hospital.

She said the NICU and the Tele-Health Projects would help to improve on quality health delivery in the district, especially in the era when neonatal care was increasingly becoming the world’s focus and most particularly in Ghana, where neonatal health issues had stagnated.

The District Health Director said other projects, such as the distribution of treated mosquito nets, renovation of children’s ward, and capacity building on the usage of the new equipment, all by the Rotary Clubs both in Ghana and Windsor, had re-positioned the hospital to deliver quality health services to its people.

Mr Theophilous Owusu Ansah, Deputy Director in charge of Clinical Care, who represented the Regional Director of Health Services, noted that the vision of the directorate had been to move from the software to the hardware.

He said it was for this reason that he admired the gesture by the Rotary Clubs, noting: “as a result of their intervention, it is now easy to compare impact with input.”

He said at the beginning of this year, the region had only 10 qualified doctors, but as a result of certain measures put in place by the Regional Health Directorate, the region currently has 25 qualified doctors.

Madam Dominica Dassah, Jirapa District Director of Education, recounted the unprecedented expansion in education infrastructure, and the provision of logistics, as well as boreholes and recreational facilities to the education sector by the Rotarians.

That, according to her, had helped improve on teaching and learning in the district, thereby, leading to an improvement in education performance from 31 percent in 2013 to 36.3 percent in 2014.

Madam Vivien-Nelly Kunko, Jirapa District Chief Executive, in a speech read on her behalf, congratulated the Rotary Clubs of Ghana and Windsor for the support, saying the Assembly and government alone could not provide all the needs of the people, hence, the need to partner with non-state actors.

She appealed to the district health authorities to take very good care of the facilities provided, to serve the health needs of the people.

Mr Franklin Atta, President of the Rotary Club of Accra Ring Road Central, said the theme for this year, “Light up Rotary,” was to emphasize on the activities of Rotary and their benefits to the people.

Naa Ansole Ganaa the second, Paramount Chief of the Jirapa Traditional Area, thanked God for the life of Sir Dr. Godfrey S. Bacheyie, and his team of selfless hardworking men and women, who out of their benevolence, had contributed positively to the lives of the poor.