KUMASI ZONGO COMMNITIES TO ADOPT WARD (PAGE 29, MAY 17, 2010)

The Moslem community in Kumasi is to adopt one of the wards of Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi, rehabilitate and maintain it regularly to enhance quality health-care delivery.
The Chief of the Zongo Community, Alhaji Umar Farouk, who announced this during a courtesy call on the Chief Executive of KATH, Professor Ohene Adjei, also said he would organise the Moslem community to support the hospital in diverse ways as a way of encouraging the medical officers to be proficient in service delivery.
The courtesy call also afforded Alhaji Farouk the opportunity to introduce himself as the new Chief of the Zongo Community and gave him the opportunity to inform the hospital administrators about the need to fast-track the release of deceased Moslems to ensure their quick burial and stressed that no matter the status of Moslems, it was their tradition to bury them as soon as they die, but delays by hospitals in releasing dead bodies sometimes delayed their burial.
Commending the KATH authorities for quality health-care delivery over the years, Alhaji Farouk said the time had come for residents in the Kumasi Metropolis and its environs to collaborate with the hospital administrators to provide uninterrupted health-care delivery to patients.
He said plans were far advanced for the Moslem community to adopt one of the wards in KATH and maintain it regularly as a way of encouraging others to emulate them and added that it was only when stakeholders collaborated with the hospital authorities in maintaining the facilities that quality health delivery could be ensured.
Responding, the KATH Administrator, Mr Offe Gyimah, promised to give the Moslem community the best services when they report at the hospital.
He, however, noted that releasing bodies for burial sometimes depended on the coroner’s report and, therefore, pleaded with the leaders of Moslems to exercise patience when they were delayed.
He commended Alhaji Farouk for his assurance that they would adopt a ward in the hospital and called on the public to provide similar support to sustain quality health-care delivery.
For his part, Professor Ohene Adjei commended them for supporting development projects at the hospital and urged them to sustain it and also gave the assurance that as their corporate responsibility, the hospital would continue to offer quality heathcare to patients to speed up their recovery.
That, he said, would enable them to support sustainable socio-economic development in the country.