First Lady Mrs Rebecca Akufo-Addo, on Thursday, commissioned the refurbished 89-year old Osu Government Maternity Home, giving it a new face-lift to continue to provide safe delivery of mothers and the safety of their new-borns.
The facility was refurbished and renovated by the Rebecca Foundation, under its Community Health Outreach Initiative, with support from the Chinese Embassy.
The old facility, said to be initiated by the Basel Missionaries of the Presbyterian Church, who also gave the land for the facility, long before Ghana gained independence, now serve more than 15,000 residents from Osu, La, Teshie, Dansoman and other areas.
Mrs Akufo-Addo said as a native of Osu, she considered the safety of women especially, during the period of child delivery dear to her heart and so she would not like to lose one of her “own” in Osu during child birth.
She described the home as playing a significant role in routine emergency intervention in its 89 years of existence, providing safe maternal health care for the people of Osu and its environs.
“All these years the facility has seen its wear and tear without any major works. It is in this vein that I am elated to today formally commission the newly refurbished Osu Maternity Home fitted with ultra-modern equipment to ensure safe delivery of our mothers and safety of our new-borns”, she noted.
The First Lady indicated that although Ghana’s maternal and infant mortality ratio decreased in recent years, there was the need to still do better.
She said the Rebecca Foundation was, therefore, committed to partner in Ghana’s agenda to reduce “our maternal and infant morbidity and mortality rate”.
She said since 2017, the Foundation pursued that agenda with a great sense of duty by building, renovating and equipping facilities all over the country.
She urged the hospital staff to ensure that they maintained the facility for it to continue to provide the needed services to the people.
Mr Shi Ting Wang, the Chinese Ambassador, said China as a good friend to Ghana and the biggest investor, was happy to support the country in her development efforts.
He said as China marked its 70th anniversary of the founding of that country, they would never forget their friends from developing countries, including Ghana.
He said China would, therefore, continue to partner Ghana, as the field of public health was an important part of China-Africa Cooperation Forum.
He said both China and Ghana had broad prospects for cooperation in the field of health, and so his country would work together with Ghana to promote the latter’s health care industry to a new level that would benefit local people and make Ghanaians live healthier and happier lives.
Dr Charity Sarpong, the Greater Accra Regional Director of Health, Ghana Health Service, commended the First Lady, for showing much compassion towards mothers and children, and towards their health care.
She said the GHS was grateful to Mrs Akufo-Addo for her numerous support towards the health care sector since she became the First Lady and gave the assurance that the Service would ensure the facility was properly maintained to serve the good people of Osu and its environs.
As part of the renovation, the Home was fully rewired to solve a long standing challenge of power leakages, low load capacity and the danger of old exposed cables. Led lights, inverter split air-conditioning units were used all round the building to reduce the power consumption.
Also, a new delivery theatre was added to the home, increasing the capacity from one functional delivery bed to four.
Two new antenatal focus consulting rooms were added, bringing the total number to three.
Again, the interconnecting corridors and access areas were fitted with disability rumps to make the home disability friendly, while a new placenta pit was installed for hygienic disposal of placenta.
The lying-in–ward was fully refurbished with new hospital beds, bedside tables and new glass access doors, which allow for better monitoring of expecting mothers by health workers, as well as a new sterilisation room and nurses room created to ameliorate working conditions for nurses.
The home, now has a refurbished clinical laboratory, pharmacy and office spaces for staff.
The Rebecca Foundation earlier provided a new emergency ambulance to the home to enable quick referral cases and emergencies.