GHANA – The Kabaka Foundation, a charitable organization, has kicked off the construction of an ultramodern Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) for the Eastern Regional Hospital at Koforidua in Ghana.

This new project will address the inconveniences nursing mothers go through due to lack of space at the NICU.

The one-storey facility project worth GH¢1.9 million (about US$300,000) will consist of a children ward for NICU babies, Out Patient Department (OPD), consulting rooms and conference rooms.

Additionally, the center will also incorporate a high dependency ward, low dependency ward, an additional mothers’ hostel, stable patient ward, isolation ward, standard OPD and emergency ward.

The facility will also have a 40-bed capacity hostel within the building to house only mothers.

Upon the completion of the new NICU building construction upon completion will be christened after its financier, the Kabaka Foundation owner Nana Owiredu Wadie, Nkosuohene of Kwahu-Nkwatia.

The project which initially started last November is expected to be completed come September 2022 with the handing over expected to fall on 28th September.

During the ribbon-cutting ceremony, the Executive Director of Kabaka Foundation Nana Owiredu Wadie said he received an official appeal from the Medical Director of the hospital on the difficulties the nursing mothers and their relatives go through at the NICU of the hospital due to lack of space.

He further said that he decided to undertake the project following media reports as well as a plea from mothers and nurses.

The initiative followed a Ghanaian Times publication on 13th November 2021 about some nursing mothers sleeping on the bare floor to take care of their babies at the NICU of the Eastern Regional Hospital.

Last year, the Foundation expanded the NICU to enable the mothers to have more space but it could not solve the inadequate space hence we decided to construct an ultra-modern facility to alleviate them from their plight,” he maintained.

Nana Owiredu indicated that the completion of the project would put smiles back on the faces of nursing mothers, their babies and other relations at the hospital NICU.

He also commended the management of the hospital for giving him the space to construct the facility.

The Medical Director of the hospital Dr. Arko Akoto-Ampaw said the hospital was elated about the project and that management was happy with Kabaka Foundation’s initiative.

He thanked the media for their publications on the plight of the nursing mothers at the NICU since when the project is completed, it will significantly reduce the stress that both patients and medical staff have been going through.

 

454 newly qualified medical, dental practitioners inducted

Meanwhile, a total of 454 newly qualified medical and dental practitioners were inducted into the profession in Accra under the theme “Guiding the profession, protecting the public”.

They were drawn from the University of Ghana Medical School and Dental School, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology School of Medicine and Dentistry and University of Cape Coast School of Medical Sciences.

Others were from Family Health University College, University of Health and Allied Sciences, Accra Medical College, University of Development Studies and foreign trained doctors who passed the Council’s registration examination.

The inductees were urged to remember the oath they had taken, the pre-induction lectures in medical professionalism and conduct, professional ethics and medical jurisprudence that council organized for

They were also urged to stay in the country to serve and accept responsibility to go to the rural areas to serve Ghanaians.

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