Ho Regional Hospital Converted to Teaching Hospital

By Ewoenam Kpodo

The Minister for Health, Mr Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, has said the government will build a new regional hospital for the Volta Region following the conversion of the old regional hospital into a teaching hospital to offer tertiary healthcare services.

"As we convert this hospital to a teaching hospital, the Director-General and the Governing Council of the Ghana Health Service will soon announce the new regional hospital for the region. I believe when this is done, it will improve access to quality health service to the people of the Volta Region and the neighbouring regions such as Eastern, Oti and countries such as Benin and Togo," he said.

The Minister made this known on Monday when he declared the now former Volta Regional Hospital (Trafalgar) as Ho Teaching Hospital (HTH) for the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS) at the University's Auditorium, Trafalgar campus.

Mr. Agyeman-Manu pledged the government's commitment to seeing the fifth teaching hospital in the country thrive and be "the premium in innovative tertiary health care delivery, medical education and research" to bring relief to all those who seek tertiary health services.

"The Ministry is working towards acquiring funds to expand infrastructure for service delivery including wards and offices. Also, the Ministry is working at getting funding to retool the hospital and acquire new equipment to enhance service delivery such as the CT Scan, Laboratory equipment, Anaesthesia machines, etc and getting the MRI back to operate," he said.

Mr. Agyemang-Manu also outlined other measures which included amending certain portions of the Act establishing teaching hospitals, improving human resource situation, and getting a Governing Board in place to ensure the hospital achieved its vision and mission.

The Volta Regional Minister, Dr. Archibald Yao Letsa, was grateful to the government for transforming hospital saying, the new status would have positive implications for the region such as attracting consultants and experts into the region and bringing about economic opportunities.

He charged management and staff of HTH to ensure excellent customer care service and work at becoming a model teaching hospital on the continent, assuring of Volta Regional Coordinating Council's readiness to support the hospital.

Acting Chief Executive of HTH, Dr. John Tampuri, promised to deliver on the hospital's new mandate and revealed that management of HTH would put in place communication team to relate with the public to enable them to appreciate the new status of the hospital and its attendant changes.

Dr. Tampuri said the hospital would take customer care issues seriously and appealed to the community to try and understand the new roles it assumed so that together, they could deliver on its mandate.

Vice Chancellor of UHAS, Prof John Gyapong, commended the government and all those who played a part in the conversion and called on the government to commit finances for the expansion of infrastructure in the hospital.

"There is currently a lot of pressure on us to increase the intake into all our programmes and introduce new ones. Any such move will be contingent on massive infrastructure improvements at the hospital to make it fit for purpose to achieve the ultimate goals of training health professional for the country."

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