The 45-year-old KATH MBU building
APPROXIMATELY SIX months is expected to be used to demolish what the contractor has said is a weak-looking Mother and Baby Unit (MBU) facility at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi.
The storey building project had virtually been neglected by successive governments since it was started 45 years ago, thereby rendering the pillars weak, and the contractor has said it could collapse if the entire structure is not pulled down for the main project.
The consultant for the project, Emmanuel Fobi Asabre, announced that six months has been earmarked as the period for the building to be reduced into rubble to pave way for a new building.
According to him, the contractors have planned that the pulling down of the huge building would be done alongside the construction of a new MBU at the same site to help prevent delays.
“The demolition exercise will last six months and the contractors will be doing the demolition and the building of a new facility concurrently to avert delays,” Fobi Asabre said on radio in Kumasi yesterday.
He disclosed that the iron rods used in constructing the 45-year-old project had rotten due to the many years that the building was abandoned.
The consultant said the demolition exercise would be done in phases in order to help prevent any adverse environmental effects on people that live close to the site, saying, “We shall be doing controlled demolition in order to help prevent any adverse effects on the public”, and noted that “small electronic jack hammer will be used mostly to pull down the building.”
He said heavy earth moving equipment would not be used for the impending exercise but added that “the impact of vibration will be insignificant.”
Fobi Asabre also announced that the MBUs original size of 750 beds would now be reduced to 500 beds capacity when the new MBU building is eventually completed in three years’ time.
Meanwhile, the Ashanti Regional Minister, Simon Osei Mensah, speaking at a press conference organised by KATH, noted that the MBU construction would not attract any additional cost.
According to him, the same amount of 138 million Euros that was earmarked to complete the old MBU would be used to construct the new facility to help boost healthcare delivery at KATH.
KATH CEO, Dr. Oheneba Owusu-Danso, on his part, stated emphatically that all resources needed to help complete the facility in 36 months’ time have been provided so there would not be delays.
FROM I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr., Kumasi