First Baptist Church donates to Tema Polyclinic

The First Baptist Church has donated assorted items to the Tema Polyclinic as part of the church’s fifty years anniversary celebrations.

The items, which included a Cardiotocography (CTG) and a Blood Bank Refrigerator, are to help the polyclinic observe and record foetal heartbeats and uterine contractions and also store blood for emergencies during child deliveries.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on Saturday after the donation, the Senior Pastor of the Church, Reverend David Kwame, observed that “hospitals are stations of God’s goodness to the communities, because medical doctors, nurses and laboratory technicians are also playing the same role as the church, but in their case they are attending to the physical health of the people whilst we attend to their spiritual health, and therefore there was the need to collaborate in the fight against sickness and diseases.”

Rev. Kwame therefore urged other churches to emulate the example of the First Baptist Church “by identifying pressing needs in their communities and attending to those needs, because the Lord Jesus Christ admonishes us to support the communities we operate in.”

He observed that charity work was part of their mandate which always made them reach out to the communities, citing a similar gesture about a year ago, when they organized a medical outreach at Community Five which cost the church close to forty thousand Ghana Cedis after attending to about 1200 patients.

Receiving the items, The Medical Superintendent of the Tema Polyclinic, Dr. Deirdre Sally Quartey, said until recently, Tema Polyclinic was the only polyclinic in the nation which offered services in general Out Patient Department, obstetrics and gynecology, “So with these services we’re offering, there’s the need to have the needed facilities to go with it.”

She observed that: “One of the main challenges facing the polyclinic was the issue of blood. We all know that during childbirth, blood transfusion could be very crucial and we’ve been operating the maternity for three years without a blood bank.”

She said whenever a situation arose for a blood transfusion, the polyclinic had to resort to the Tema General Hospital during which time and other complications might have set in leading to fatalities.

“Things have been difficult for us in that regard, and we therefore find this gesture by the First Baptist Church very thoughtful, and we believe this would help save many lifes,” she informed.

The cost for the purchase of the CTG, the Blood Bank Refrigerator and the renovation of the blood Unit, was about GH ¢30, 000.

After the donation, the church members donated blood to the unit, helping the polyclinic to stock the blood bank with its first set of 25 pints of blood.

The First Baptist Church was established in 1968 and has planted about 28 other churches of the Baptist fraternity in and around the Tema Metropolis.

Before the donation, the church had a float through some principal streets of the Metropolis with hundreds of church members coming out to celebrate fifty years of propagating the gospel.