Take care of medical items donated to your facility – Oppong Nkrumah tells nurses

Member of Parliament (MP) for Ofoase-Ayirebi, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has admonished health workers in communities within his jurisdiction to uphold the highest standards of maintenance culture to ensure that the equipment at their health centres have longer lifespan.

His advice follows a donation of medical items worth over GHC200, 000 to eight health centres within the Ofoase-Ayirebi Constituency.

The items donated include wheelchairs, bandages, operation kits, gloves, drips, beds, patient lifts, and lab test equipment.

The donation forms part of a strategic health intervention plan which comes in three phases instituted by the MP, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, in collaboration with the DCE, Paul Asamoah to improve health delivery in Ofoase-Ayirebi through the provision of critical logistics, critical staff and provision of infrastructure to the health centres.

Kojo Oppong Nkrumah advised the nurses to ensure that the equipment serve the purpose and also do their best to make them last beyond the expected lifespan.

He said, “Today we are pleased that in collaboration with our donor partners, we are making available medical equipment of various categories to the tune of about GHC200, 000; it includes delivery beds for our sisters and mothers who are in labour, patient lifts for those who are not mobile, IV kits, operation kits, wheelchairs, hundreds of thousands of gloves and bandages, masks and lab test kits. It is our dream and our vision that we will significantly improve the state of medical care in this district as we go through this phase of the medical project.”

“My prayer to all of you, our friends in the medical fraternity especially is to take good care of the facilities we are upgrading and the equipment we are making available so that they will last longer than we even envisaged,” he added.

According to the MP, refurbishment work on existing medical facilities within Ayirebi, Brenasi and Otwereso are almost completed whereas the others at Akokoaso, Gyaha, Anyinase, Abenase and Ofoase are expected to be completed before the end of year 2018.

He said, “the office of the Member of Parliament and the office of the DCE, have come together to embark on a medical improvement project which is in three phases, the first phases is to upgrade 8 medical centres; Akokoaso, Brenasi, Ofoase, Ayirebi, Gyaha, Abenase, Anyinase and Otwereso as I speak to you here currently, work is almost completed at the Brenasi medical centre and at the Ayirebi medical center. Contractors are just starting work at the Otwereso medical centre as well and when they are done the remaining five medical centres will also be attended to.”

The MP disclosed that as part of plans to provide critical medical personnel to health centres in the constituency, two additional Physician Assistants and a doctor will be deployed to the health centres before end of 2018.

Health Director of Akyemanso District, Gifty Sunu hailed the efforts of the MP and the DCE describing them as 'Messiahs'.

She said their commitment to the improvement of healthcare in the district was historic and was pleased to be a part of the story.

“The first phase of the Kojo Oppong Nkrumah health intervention programme has so far seen a near completion refurbishment of the Brenase Health Centre, donation of drugs to selected health facilities and this very one we are about to witness. In fact, today I will say we are on a milestone in the history of health service delivery in the Akyemansa district which was created 10 years ago,” she said.