New GPHA hospital to become FIFA MRI centre to check ages of players

A modern hospital built by the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) to provide specialist medical services is expected to be operational in September this year

The $23 million facility, built by the GPHA from internally generated funds (IGF), is fully automated and will provide medical services that people hitherto had to travel outside the country for.

Some of the services to be provided include medical, surgical, paediatric and interventional cardiology services.

The Head of Medical Services at the GPHA, Dr Vitus Anaab-Bisi, who took the Daily Graphic team on a tour of the facility, disclosed that the 130-bed facility would also have a magnetic resonance technology and become a centre for the world football governing body, FIFA, to carry out tests for the age of footballers in the West African sub-region.

With age-cheating said to be a common feature in African football due to the fact that records in many countries are not easily verifiable, FIFA intends to use the magnetic resonance technology (MRI) to clamp down on age fraud in football. It will also become the second hospital in Africa to have such a technology

A delegation from FIFA has since visited the facility which has a helipad for the  evacuation of patients.

Installation of equipment is underway at the facility to facilitate the commencement of commercial operations.

All services at the facility, Dr Anaab-Bisi said, would be automated to ensure operational efficiency and limit human error and fatigue.

The facility, which also comes with a mortuary with a capacity for 84 bodies that can be expanded to hold 200 bodies, would also have its laboratories accredited by international hospital-accreditation agencies.

Tertiary Referral
Dr Anaab-Bisi said other services that the facility would offer were neurology, which would deal with the diagnosis and treatment of all conditions involving the central nervous system; surgical cases, including eye surgery, as well as obstetrics and gynaecology.

 'We have the needed infrastructure and human resource expertise in place for high-end services that many people expend heavily to travel out for. Our intention is to limit the exportation of health services and our cherished foreign exchange to other countries', he said.

He indicated that the Tema metropolis, being the nerve centre for industrial activities, had seen an increasing number of trauma cases resulting from industrial accidents.

As such, a dedicated trauma unit has been set up at the facility to cater for such cases.  

'Trauma care will be one of the niche areas we intend to devote attention to. There are also avenues for us to do knee and hip transplants for people who may need such services', Dr Anaab- Bisi said.

Equipment for the knee and hip replacement surgery which were procured from Germany was being installed.

Defibrillators
He said 17 defibrillators used to deliver therapeutic shock to patients suffering from cardiac arrest had been installed at vantage points of the facility.

Dr Anaab-Bisi also hinted that specialist clinics to provide care to people with gastroenterology and liver conditions such as colon polyps and cancer, hepatitis, heartburn, peptic ulcer, among others, would be available at the facility.

The hospital, he added, also came with a 20-bed renal dialysis centre that would provide comprehensive therapy and support service treatment to people with kidney conditions.

'We have realised that the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital is overwhelmed with such cases which have often seen patients in need of such services queuing as early as 1 a.m. at that facility to access the services', he said.

'It was for this reason we have engaged the management of Korle Bu to offload patients to the Maritime Hospital as soon as we open for business', Dr Anaab-Bisi added.

Patients needing such services, he said, would be served by appointments. 'There would be walk-in services too, but we intend to limit them to avoid congestion'.

He indicated that with oxygen being the nerve centre in health delivery, plant had been installed to produce oxygen.

'The capacity of the plant is such that we can produce in commercial quantities for sale to other health facilities in the country', he stated.

Dr Anaab-Bisi stressed that the noisy nature of industrial work within the maritime industry and the Tema Metropolis had rendered many industrial workers hearing-impaired.

'It is for this reason that we have decided to put up a complete centre for ear, nose and throat (ENT) where surgeries for such conditions would be offered to the public', he said.

The facility would, therefore, become the second after the 37 Military Hospital to provide such services in the country.

Online Services
Dr Anaab-Bisi was of the view that information technology (IT) was very important in modern health delivery, hence the decision of the GPHA to use a modern hospital management information software.

The software, he said, would enable all processes to be automated such that patients would not need to carry reports from the hospital's laboratories back to the consulting room. Rather, the results would be sent via a network to doctors to be viewed directly on thier computers.

The various theatres at the facilities would also be IT-networked since they were required to be monitored online by the manufacturers.

'The Central Sterilisation Surgical Department, where sterilisation of medical devices, equipment and consumables for subsequent use by health workers in the operating theatre of the hospital, for instance, would be monitored by the manufacturer as it operates, hence the need to have a robust IT system', Dr Anaab-Bisi emphasised.

Writer's email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .