President John Agyekum Kufuor will on Saturday inaugurate the newly constructed modern National Accident Emergency Centre at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH).
The new facility has been designed to provide quality service delivery to accident victims in the northern sector of the country.
The project, which was estimated at 74.5 million euros includes modern medical equipment at the centre, a new pathology centre with a modern histopathology laboratory and a morgue with cubicles with the capacity to take 208 bodies. The project also involved a comprehensive renovation, expansion and equipping of the specialist Out- Patients Department.
The project was funded by the government and designed to have all the clinical areas on the ground and first floors, with the administration, central command and education facilities on the second floor.
The first floor also has wards with 66 beds made up of 22 beds each for males, females and children as well as an eight-bed intensive care unit with an isolation unit, which has three single beds.
In addition, the project also has a Burns Unit with three single beds, operating theatres, Sterile Supply Department, renal dialysis, as well as two bed spaces equipped with mobile dialysis equipment.
This brings the total of beds on that floor to 80, with 24 observation beds on the ground floor, bringing the total number of beds to 104.
The Chief Executive of KATH, Dr Anthony Nsiah Asare, told the Daily Graphic that the facility, which is modern and the first of its kind in the country, represented "the President's gesture to enhance the provision of quality healthcare delivery to accident victims in the northern sector of the country".
He said other facilities such as radiography, pharmacy, laboratories, blood bank and a dental unit, a mortuary for overnight storage, central stores and materials management had been provided to enable the new centre to meet all the needs of its clients.
He also said the central housekeeping, central staff changing area, as well as administration areas, education facilities, which include a command centre for the overall operational control and co-ordination of emergencies, as well as other facilities had been provided to enhance efficient services delivery.
Dr Nsiah Asare said a separate national disaster area had also been provided in a large space for emergency services.
"Although there are separate clinical departments within this building, it is primarily a major accident and emergency centre, which will require close working relations across the traditional clinical barriers.
This co-operation will be a very important issue in a major emergency. In this building, there are many small specialist departments such as a three-bed Burns Unit, a three-bed isolation unit as well as an eight-bed intensive care unit with staff facilities, administration centre, reception, teaching, seminar and meeting facilities located for convenient shared use across those departments," he noted.
He said working practices might be reviewed "to fully integrate the separate clinical departments into a fully co-ordinated accident and emergency centre".
To enhance the culture of maintenance to make the centre sustain its services, Dr Nsiah Asare said: "Engineering and equipment maintenance services will be provided by the main contractor under a five-year maintenance agreement signed as part of the contract.
“Efforts will also be made to facilitate technology transfer to in-house technical staff to continue with the planned preventive maintenance of the centre and equipment after the five years”, Dr Nsiah Asare added.
He noted further that resources would be made available for the training and re-training of staff to build their capacity in a more effective and efficient way to enable them to stay on top of their jobs.
"We will also have to intensify our fund-raising activities under the hospital's Endowment Fund to mobilise the needed resources to renovate the old hospital blocks which must be given the needed facelift to blend with the new projects springing up around the hospital", he assured.
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