Sabine Dall’Omo handing over the ultrasound to Alex Segbefia as other officials look on
The Lordina Foundation, the charitable agency of the First Lady, Lordina Mahama, with support from Siemens, global technology powerhouse, has presented an ultrasound scanner to the La General Hospital.
The presentation of the ultrasound machine, Siemens Acuson X 150, is to help the hospital improve maternal care services by diagnosing pregnancy-related abnormalities which otherwise could have been missed till delivery and could have resulted in unexpected emergency.
The Siemens Acuson X150 model apart from scanning pregnancy can also be used to provide scanning services to diagnose cardiovascular problems, including blood flow and heart defect, urology especially prostate, bladder and kidneys, cerebrovascular diseases, abdominal problems, liver, pancreas, spleen and masses that may be present.
Siemens Africa Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Sabine Dall’Omo, officially handing over the ultrasound unit to the hospital, stated that the global company is committed to playing a meaningful role in the development of the African continent, hence the willingness to support the Lordina Foundation.
“We are confident that this donation of the ultrasound unit will improve diagnostic imaging of patients, support the hospital’s everyday clinical requirement and contribute to affordable and accessible healthcare to Ghanaian citizens,” she said.
Minister of Health, Alex Segbefia, receiving the equipment on behalf of the Lordina Foundation, expressed gratitude to Siemens for supporting the Lordina Foundation to bring improved healthcare to pregnant women in La.
He said with the coming of the ultrasound to the La General Hospital, every pregnancy will be scanned at least three times to enable the clinicians to plan the delivery ahead of time to reduce maternal deaths.
Touching on the significance of public-private-partnership, he said the Ministry of Health is faced with a major bottleneck of accelerating the procurement of healthcare technologies for better clinical service delivery.
“Till date, the Ministry of Health has been under the burden of providing resources to fund all third party maintenance contracts on equipment it procures centrally under various project whose extended warranties had elapsed,” he said.
He again thanked the global technology giant and urged the management of the hospital to ensure that the equipment are taken good care of and applied to the benefit of patients.
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri