Kwame Sefa Kayi launches campaign to reduce child mortality

The Kokrokoo Charities Foundation, has presented two incubators worth $20,000 to the First Lady, Mrs Rebecca Akufo Addo towards her “Save a Mother Save a Child” project for the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH).

Mr Kwami Sefa Kayi, founder of the Kokrokoo Charities Foundation and host of the Kokrokoo Morning Show on Peace FM, who presented the incubators to the First Lady, said the equipment were in honour of a pledge made during the launch of the “Save a Mother save a Child” project organised by Mrs Akofo Addo in Accra recently in support of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH).

Mr Sefa Kayi said the two incubators add up to six others that had already been installed by his Foundation under its “Project 100 Incubators” initiative that were being installed at the Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) of various government facilities in Accra, Prestea, Nsawam and Tamale.

Among the benefitting hospitals were the Prestea Government Hospital in the Western Region, La General Hospital, Nsawam Government Hospital, and the Police Hospital, all in the Greater Accra Region and the Tamale Teaching Hospital in the Northern Region.

He explained that the incubators being donated fall under the “Giving hope to mothers, Keeping Children Alive” campaign, championed by the Foundation and aimed at raising funds to purchase and install 100 incubators in NICUs of health facilities nationwide.

He said the incubators were to help cater for babies born before 37 weeks of pregnancy, known in medical terms as pre-term deliveries.

Mr Sefa Kayi said when he initiated the fund-raising programme in June 2014 to purchase 100 incubators at a cost of $100 million, most people thought it was so daunting, but he believed “someone needed to do it”.

“I know it’s tough but we have to do it”, he noted, adding that in the next two weeks, the ninth incubator would be installed at the Central Regional Hospital.

The First Lady on her part thanked Kwami for honouring the pledge saying the incubators would be useful in helping address the situation at the KATH.

Meanwhile, two other companies, Midray, a medical device company through its local representative KD Global, donated two unit of portable ultra-sound machines while Life Care Technology presented patient monitors that would help check vital signs of patients to the First Lady.

The First Lady in May this year organised two fundraising events in support of a new mother and baby unit at KATH which yielded positive response, with various individuals and institutions donating cash and equipment towards the initiative, while others made pledges.

The two events that were organised in Accra and in Kumasi recently, was to mobilise GH¢ 10 million to fund the building of the maternity Unit to help end needless deaths of babies and mothers at the hospital due to lack of space.

Accounts verified by Deloitte and Touche as at 31st May 2017, indicated that organisations and individuals had donated an amount of GH¢6, 170, 686, 23 with an outstanding amount of cash pledges of GH¢1, 489,500.00 yet to be redeemed.

Additionally, in-kind pledges and donations including cement, electrical cables, windows, pipes, baby cots, hospital beds and incubators were made.

The new mother and baby unit is in direct response to the congestion in the current maternity unit, which has inadequate medical equipment to cope with the volume of births, surgeries and neonatal care at KATH, leading to high volumes of avoidable death of babies and mothers.

Authorities at the KATH had attributed most of the deaths at the Unit to higher than normal infections and cross-contamination due to lack of space and equipment.

The lack of hygiene was also another factor as the space was so little, that there was no practical way to clean the wards due to overcrowding.

When completed, the new baby unit, a 1,500 square metre one storey building with the capacity to take five times the current number, would solve the current capacity of KATH and give it additional capacity to grow over the next five years.