Wa Technical Institute gets sickbay

Osbert Salifu Dambia, the Vice Principal in charge of Administration at the Wa Technical Institute (WTI), has disclosed that a sickbay would soon be operational to help bring primary healthcare closer to the people.

He said the facility, when opened, would help reduce the drudgery both staff and students go through to access healthcare services at the Wa Municipal Hospital, particularly at night.

Mr Dambia, who disclosed this to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview at Wa at the weekend, noted that “sometimes teachers or drivers have to wake up at night to send a student to the hospital”.

“The teachers or drivers have to spend the night at the hospital and come back in the morning, they are exhausted but they still have to work.

“Sometimes too they go there and have to pay money but maybe they (teachers and drivers) did not send money there because it is an emergency and in the night,” he explained.

He, however, said when the sickbay is opened on the campus, primary health cases would be managed on the campus, while serious cases would be transferred to the appropriate health facilities.

The Vice Principal added that it would help reduce the rate of students seeking permission to go to town as some of the students requested permission under the pretense of going to the hospital, but ended up in town doing other things.

The facility, Mr Dambia said, had male and female detaining rooms with three beds each, accommodation with necessary facilities for health staff; consulting room, refrigerator for storing medicines and tables among others.

He announced that the school had put in place measures to help protect the students against the Coronavirus (COVID-19) as schools resumed on Friday, January 15, 2020.

Some of the measures included the wearing of nose mask, regular handwashing; social distancing at the classrooms, dormitories and dining hall, and regular temperature check.