Mrs Barbosa handing over the medical equipment to Dr. Tamaklo.
The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), has handed over 14 ventilator machines to six hospitals to support their Intensive Care Units (ICU).
The donation was made under the “Covid-19 Alliance of Ghanaian Hospitals to Secure Medical Staff” project.
It forms part of the German Government’s effort to ensure that infrastructure for reliable treatment is in place for medical staff and critically ill patients who may require intensive care because of Covid-19.
The beneficiary hospitals are: Nyaho Medical Centre, Lister Hospital, 37 Military Hospital, Ghana Police Hospital, International Maritime Hospital, and the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital.
Country Director for GIZ, Regina Bauerochse Barbosa, said the project, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), brings together two private facilities and four quasi-government facilities, as well as a private bio-medical engineering company to work towards equipping ICUs of the partnering facilities and the exchange of knowledge on the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
She said the German Government, apart from donating medical equipment to the partner facilities through the project, will support the training of medical staff and hospital maintenance teams to operate and repair the equipment.
There will also be a consortium among the partnering facilities to exchange knowledge and share best practices.
Mrs Barbosa said her outfit was working with several partners to support the fight against the pandemic with various interventions, notable amongst them being a collaboration with “Food for All Africa” to provide nutritious meals to frontline workers and vulnerable groups.
She said they were also working with Kasapreko to produce disinfectants from cassava ethanol and with the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) to develop Covid-19 test kits.
“We are equally supporting the Academic City College to finish developing their prototype ventilator into a final low-cost product,” she added.
Dr Elikem Tamaklo, Medical Director for Nyaho Medical Centre, who received the donation on behalf of the hospitals, said one of the key ways to beat the Covid-19 pandemic was through partnerships with governments, public and private health sectors as the need for collaboration to develop a sustainable health sector was evident now more than ever.
“As the first private health facility in Ghana to start testing and treating Covid-19, we are extremely grateful to GIZ for donating these ventilators specifically for the treatment of frontline workers in the six hospitals,” he added.
Dr Edem Hiadzi, Chief Executive Officer of Lister Hospital noted that the year 2020 had been a very challenging one specifically because of Covid-19.
He expressed gratitude to GIZ for the supportive role they are playing to increase the capacity of the healthcare system to enable the handling of severe cases of Covid-19, particularly intensive care cases.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri