KHRC donates items to the Kintampo Municipal Hospital

The Kintampo Health Research Centre (KHRC) has donated some items to the Children’s Ward of the Kintampo Municipal Hospital. The items included 40 beds, 80 bed sheets, 40 mattresses, 40 pillows and 40 mosquito nets. The donation formed part of the research centre’s commitment to maintain its collaborations with the Kintampo Municipal Hospital.

In his welcome address, the Health Services Administrator of the Kintampo Municipal Hospital, Mr. Jeremiah M. Tiimob, who represented the Medical Superintendent, extended a hand of welcome to all for taking time off their busy schedules to grace the occasion. He indicated that the Kintampo hospital has been in research collaboration with KHRC and through this collaboration it has been able to assist the centre to come out with health interventions which can inform policy regarding health care delivery. 

The Director of KHRC, Dr. Seth Owusu-Agyei recalled that in 2005, KHRC decided to increase its research activities in clinical studies and not only in malaria trials. He reminded those gathered that in the initial stages when an assessment of KHRC was about to be undertaken in order to assess its readiness for the malaria vaccine trial, at that time there was no Children’s ward and KHRC had observed that the current Children’s ward even though the building had been put up it was not yet in use. Discussions were held with the management of the Kintampo hospital where it came out that an amount of five thousand Ghana Cedis (GH¢5,000.00) was required to complete work on the building. The hospital supported with one thousand five hundred Ghana Cedis (GH¢1,500.00) and the remaining amount of three thousand five hundred Ghana Cedis (GH¢ 3,500.00) was provided by KHRC to complete the building.

Dr. Owusu-Agyei further mentioned that at that time there was also the need to provide beds for the new children’s ward and with the support of the then Director-General of Ghana Health Service (GHS), Prof. Agyemang Badu Akosa, a few adults’ beds were provided. Even with the provision of these beds, he said KHRC still observed that the beds were inadequate especially in the rainy season when the hospital had to admit more children to the ward and KHRC also had to admit its study children. KHRC therefore promised to provide peadiatric beds for the Children’s ward and this promise is what is being fulfilled. He added that “This is what we are capable of doing now; We will do more when the opportunity comes”. He added that with the initiation of the research work and the clinical trials, the hospital medical team will attest to the fact care has improved greatly. Furthermore, he said that in the past oxygen was difficult to come by in the ward but since this is a requirement for clinical studies to resuscitate sick patients, KHRC has made it possible for this to become available at the Children’s ward and other wards in the hospital come to the Children’s ward for oxygen when there is a need for them to do so.

He mentioned the fact that through KHRC’s research work, it had donated an X-ray machine to the hospital and this equipment is now available for use for those in the community and this has helped to improve the quality of care given to patients who visit the Kintampo hospital. He was of the opinion that the funders of KHRC’s research activities would be impressed when they visit and see a transformed Children’s ward.
Dr. Owusu-Agyei expressed his appreciation to the Kintampo community for the support KHRC has received over the years. He noted that without the cooperation of the community the centre would not have been able to carry out its research work in the municipality. He appealed to stakeholders not to relent in their efforts to support KHRC to carry out its research work. He appealed to management of the hospital to take good care of the donated items and put them to good use.

In his remarks, the representative of the Brong Ahafo Regional Director of Health Services, Dr. David Opare said the Kintampo hospital has seen a wave of transformation which is a great achievement. He said KHRC has demonstrated good collaboration with the hospital as enshrined in the mission statement of the GHS. He lauded KHRC for all the good works it has done for the hospital and especially the opening of the Children’s ward and going ahead to donate items to the ward. He said the Regional Health Directorate was pleased with this gesture and called on other bodies to emulate the good works of KHRC. He stressed the need for KHRC and the hospital to continue to maintain this collaboration. Dr. Opare recommended that the Children’s ward should be called “KHRC ward” in view of the contribution KHRC had made to the hospital in general and the ward in particular.

Mr. Eric Tukuu who represented the Kintampo North Municipal Director of Health Services mentioned that health problems in the municipality would be solved to a large extent if there is effective collaboration between the hospital, KHRC, the Rural Health Training School and the Municipal Health Directorate. He said the donation was an outcome of the importance of this collaboration and hoped that this should be strengthened. Furthermore, he said the three areas the four health institutions need to seriously consider and work towards a reduction or elimination are malaria, intestinal worm and acute eye infection. He said the figures recorded by the directorate in 2010 as far as these health problems were concerned were not impressive and he hoped that all the institutions would work at improving them. On behalf of the health directorate, he expressed gratitude to KHRC for the kind gesture and like Oliver Twist, they will ask for more.

In his remarks, Health Services Administrator of the Kintampo Municipal Hospital Mr. Tiimob stated that KHRC has been a worthy partner to the hospital and has contributed a lot to bringing the hospital the status it attained. As a result of the contributions KHRC has made to the hospital, it had the best results among the public hospitals in the Brong Ahafo region when the National Health Insurance accreditation took place in 2010. When a peer review mechanism in the region was carried out, the hospital scored a high mark. In addition, he said the vaccination area of the hospital was also created by KHRC and KHRC provided shelves for the records department of the hospital which had greatly improved record keeping. A walkway was financed by KHRC and a new High Dependency Ward had also been put up by KHRC for running clinical trials. Staff of the hospital have also benefited a lot from training programmes offered by KHRC. On behalf of management and staff of the hospital, Mr. Tiimob was thankful to KHRC for all the interventions KHRC had put in place to ensure that clients receive the best treatment at the hospital. He believed that the donation will further boost the collaborations between the two institutions.

The Kintampo North Municipal Chief Executive, Hon. Seidu Harrison called on all to emulate the good example of KHRC. He said the Kintampo hospital attracts people from other districts in the northern region for health care. He thanked the director and staff of KHRC for all the good work and advised people to put aside their political affiliations and come together to build Kintampo for the common good of the people.

For more info contact:

Kabio Casimir Donlebo (Communications Officer).
Kintampo Health Research Centre
P.O.Box 200
Kintampo.B/A.
Tel: +233 246 391916

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