President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Tuesday inspected a new Covid-19 Isolation and Treatment Centre at Pantang in Accra.
The facility, known as the Pantang Covid-19 Isolation and Treatment Centre, was started by the previous New Patriotic Party (NPP) administration led by President J.A. Kufuor as a learning centre for the Ghana Health Service (GHS) on the premises of the Pantang Hospital.
It was, however, abandoned until recently when the Covid-19 outbreak surged, compelling the government with the support of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to complete the facility and use it for an isolation and treatment centre.
At a short ceremony at the site on Wednesday, President Akufo-Addo could not hide his excitement over the completion of the project. “In everything that we are doing, we have to help ourselves. Nobody will come in and help us if we do not help ourselves,” he indicated.
“…To come here today to see this collaboration between public and private entities and the Government of Ghana to put up this very critical infrastructure in our fight against the Covid-19 pandemic is something which is very reassuring and dear to my heart, and I want to congratulate all the people who have been involved in this: the Ministry of Health, the leadership of the Electricity Company of Ghana, the project coordinator, the contractor and obviously the public officials of the Ministry of Health for coming together and working so effectively,” he added.
It is expected that once the pandemic is over, the facility will be converted into an infectious disease centre.
President Akufo-Addo considered all these additions to the existing health infrastructure in the country as extremely beneficial.
“So, let me say once again that I’m very happy to see what has happened here today … I congratulate once again all the people who are involved in making this happen,” he said.
He has since charged managers of the facility to take good care of it and also make sure that it is well maintained so that it can serve generations of Ghanaians to come.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu