Kwaku Agyeman-Manu (3rd left) in a photograph with health workers at Tarkwa
Health Minister Kwaku Agyeman-Manu has assured that the construction of a regional hospital for the Western Region will begin next year.
“I am pretty sure that by close of this year, we might have actually concluded sourcing for some facilities to come start the Western Regional Hospital by 2019,” Mr Agyeman-Manu explained.
He revealed this during a courtesy call on the Western Regional Minister, Dr Kweku Afriyie, in Sekondi as part of a three-day official visit to health facilities in the region.
The health minister revealed that some five polyclinics and a district hospital that the government assured of establishing for the Western Region are due for commissioning.
Interacting with some heads of public health institutions in the region, the health minister urged hospital administrators to work diligently at improving their internally generated fund (IGF) to meet demands for expansion and health workers’ benefits.
“Let us look at how we can bring some efficiency in managing IGFs and that would be a shared responsibility,” he pointed out.
The minister and his entourage also visited some health facilities in the Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipality, including the Tarkwa Nursing & Midwifery Training School, where he reiterated his ministry’s commitment to addressing the needs of the three facilities visited and further promised to help improve the working condition of the health workers in the country.
The Tarkwa-Nsuaem MCE, Gilbert Asmah, who welcomed Mr Agyeman-Manu, appealed to the minister to help construct a new campus for the Tarkwa Nursing & Midwifery Training School because its current location used to be an eye clinic which lacked space to accommodate its increasing enrolment.
From Emmanuel Opoku, Takoradi