Over 40-year-old uncompleted KATH maternity block to be demolished for redevelopment

The Maternity and Children's Block of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in the Ashanti Region is set to be pulled down to allow for the construction of a new edifice.

The is because the facility which has been abandoned for 44 years failed to meet the structural integrity test after an assessment by the construction firm tasked to ensure its completion.

President Akufo-Addo in May 2020 cut the sod for the construction of the project and gave a completion deadline of 36-months.

The construction and completion of the project will be funded by the Deutsche Bank in Germany at a cost of €155 million.

Ashanti Regional Minister, Simon Osei Mensah who spoke on Kumasi-based Abusua FM confirmed that the decision to pull down the facility is based on the final report by the construction firm, Contract, after its assessment of the whole structure.

“The construction firm proposed that the building should be demolished and re-constructed entirely after it conducted a structural integrity test on the facility. The proposal was tabled before authorities and a decision to pull down the building was arrived at. This is necessary because it is good to do the right thing since one does not know what could happen in the future should the contractor go-ahead to continue with the project. So it is true that the facility will be pulled down and reconstructed with new designs altogether,” he explained

The Minister said a stakeholder consultation has begun to sensitize the public especially people who live close to the facility to get them to cooperate with authorities when the demolishing of the project starts.

He indicated that patients on are currently on admission at the hospital will also be notified about the demolishing exercise.

Mr. Osei Mensah added that the facility will be pulled down after the public sensitization is over.

A visit by Citi News to the construction site revealed that bulldozers are stationed with a portion of the facility already pulled down.

The area has also been barricaded with warning signs erected to notify the public of the dangers associated with getting close.

The project began in 1976, as part of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) Expansion Project, but came to a standstill in 1979.

Once completed, the Maternity and Children's Block will be a state-of-the-art, modern health edifice, with paediatrics, gynaecology, and obstetrics units.

It will serve as a referral centre for 12 of the 16 regions of Ghana.

It will be a 750-bed building, with outpatient areas for adults and children, and it will have 10 operating theatres and diagnostic rooms, fully equipped with X-Ray, ultrasound, and mammography facilities.

The facility will also house an intensive care unit, a high dependency unit, isolation rooms, and student lecture halls, with the capacity to provide catering services for staff, patients, and students.

---citinewsroom