St Joseph Hospital is to expand and help train orthopaedics

Koforidua, Sept 29, GNA - The Director of the St Joseph Hospital, an orthopaedic hospital at Koforidua in the Eastern Region, Reverend Brother Johannes Torwoe has appealed for support to enable the hospital to expand its operation to meet the demands of the public. The St Joseph hospital is one of the few orthopaedic facilities in Ghana founded by St John of God Catholic Missionaries for humanitarian services.

The Hospital treats referral cases from countries in the West African Region. According to him, the funding partners of the hospital had folded up and so the hospital basically, was being run on internally generated funds, which he described as inadequate. The Director made the appeal at the Golden Jubilee Anniversary launch of the Hospital on the theme "We remain your reliable partner in health delivery".

Rev Torwoe indicated that the hospital was embarking on an expansion programme, which was being sponsored solely by a Dutch couple and said, this places more responsibility on the hospital in terms of equipments and staff, and called on philanthropist to aid them in accomplishing the desire of the missionaries. The Director of Human Resource at the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Ebenezer Appiah-Denkyirah said with the implementation of the National Health Insurance Scheme, the GHS intends to support all health facilities equally.

He observed that once both public and private faculties were providing health care services to the public, it had become necessary for the GHS to resource both on equal basis in terms of equipments and staff.

Dr Appiah-Denkyirah who is the immediate past Eastern Regional Director of Health Services, enumerated the immense contribution of the hospital to the healthcare delivery in the region and the nation, and pledged the support of the GHS in their expansion. He recalled that at a point in time all health facilities closed down as a result of strike, except the St Joseph hospital, adding that the pressure they wholeheartedly embraced, and the number of lives they saved during that period was a testimony of the work of the hospital. The Regional Minster, Mr Kwadwo Afram-Asiedu who chaired the function, expressed gratitude to the founders of the hospital and the workers who have held high the vision of the founders to provide humanitarian service to the needy. He said government would support the expansion project of the hospital to be able to train orthopaedic surgeons to help cut down the overseas training of specialists in the health sector. 29 Sept 08