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03.05.2013 Feature Article

Sinare: ’Only The Best In Medicare Is Good For Ghana’

Sinare: Only The Best In Medicare Is Good For Ghana
03.05.2013 LISTEN

Ghana's healthcare system received a major boost recently with President John Dramani Mahama commissioning of the hi-tech 640 slice computerized tomography (CT) and the ultra-modern Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) equipment at the Korle-bu Teaching Hospital in Accra.

Ghana is only the third country in Africa to add the equipment to its healthcare system. The others are Egypt and South Africa.

Installed as part of the current Mahama-led administration's Better Ghana agenda by Ghana's leading name in medical technology Agvad Ghana Limited, the new equipment now gives the country the capability for advanced medical diagnostic services for which citizens of its neigbhours routinely pay expensively to do in the advanced world.

ACT (Computerised Tomography) scanner consists of an x-ray tube that rotates at high speed around the body, generating x-rays which are variably absorbed by the different tissues in the body. These x-ray beams produce thousands of cross-sectional images of your body which are then amalgamated by a computer to produce incredibly detailed, static or moving, three dimensional pictures that can be viewed from any angle.

The quality of these images and the amount of radiation that is required to generate them depends largely on the number of image slides that can be generated from each rotation of the x-ray tube. While most hospitals use scanners of between 2 and 64 slides, the new Aquilion ONE scanner has the capacity to generate 640 slides.

The world's most powerful and advanced scanner, the Aquilion One has the highest spatial resolution of any scanner and allows for dynamic imaging of moving joints.

It is also the medical industry's only,
• dynamic volume CT scanner with the capability to acquire 16 cm's of anatomy in a single rotation;

• whole brain, 4D CT-DSA and Perfusion in ONE exam;

• fastest acute stroke workup—4.5min;
• innovative Adaptive Iterative Dose Reduction (AIDR) technology; and

• equipment with the ability to acquire anatomical and functional data simultaneously to change and improve clinical pathways.

With a 71 cm aperture and a 1.5T ultra-short, open-bore, the Vantage Titan provides outstanding image quality without compromise.

According to Agvad Ghana Limited's managing director Gamel Sinare, the machines scan ''almost everything in the human body. And, it does not only diagnose, it also predicts. This is why it is also vital requirement in research. It also helps in resolving a lot of cases. Having them in here Ghana is of enormous benefit.

So instead of flying to America or Europe for sundry advanced medical diagnosis, these equipment bring the same quality of technological service home to, and within easier reach of, needy Ghanaians and our neighbors within our West African subregion.''

In addition to Korle-bu, the machines have also been installed at Tamale, Kumasi, the Volta Region and Cape Coast among other places.

''Their installation in other parts of the country is in phases. By the end of this year, we should be able to complete the rest of the regions. And the aim of installing these machines is to bring quality medical equipment, the best medical imaging equipment in the world right home here to Ghana,'' stated Mr. Sinare adding that Toshiba, the Japanese manufacturers of the machines has concluded plans to make Accra the hub of their west and central Africa operations.

''This year, Toshiba plans to set up a hub here in Ghana to cover west and central Africa. This is a big plus, this is a very, very big plus because it means we will have all the Toshiba expertise and technology that is channelled towards west and central Africa being centred here, and Ghana will benefit from it.''

Allaying fears that the machines would be allowed to go waste because of lack of maintainance, Sinare assured that a mechanism was already in place to forestall such.

''Agvad's core value is service. If you don't have a good service culture, you will not achieve what you have embarked upon. So, I'm proud to say that with the collaboration of Toshiba-Fuji-Shimadzu, we are proud to say that we have the best of engineers in the whole of west Africa.

Indeed, some of our engineers even fly, on demand, to some other west African countries on specialist assignments. That's partly why Toshiba trusted us such as make us a hub. And when this hub here in Ghana becomes fully operational, we hope even more Toshiba engineers will come here, will be stationed here in Ghana, bringing in more of their expertise, to help in promoting and servicing the equipment and transfer some of that expertise to Ghanaians,'' he stated.

Starting out as just a medical and chemist shop, Agvad was operated as such for several years before upgrading itself to the present next level of a multi-million dollar medical engineering company and sole representative of such global brands as Fuji/Toshiba and Shimadzu.

Looking back at the road that led to Ghana's recent successful installation of the machines, Sinare said it was not an easy one.

"First, it used to be only Korle-bu that had them. People had to come all the way down from the north to access them, spend three or four days in the process, wait for your turn before you are being scanned, and so on.

But today, you have the most sophisticated equipment lying down at Korle-bu and elsewhere around the country; and, they are all functioning very well. We intend to expand the scope of facilities where the equipment is available to all over Ghana and west Africa. In fact, right now, people are coming to Ghana from all over our west Africa sub-region to access the equipment.

What Ghana has, I mean the technology that Ghana has in medical imaging, no other country in west Africa has anything similar. So Ghanaians today should be proud and give credit to their current government, moreso as the equipment is cheap for everyone to access.

Now, Ghanaian medical personnel can diagnose cases more easily and be able to predict and tell you, for instance, that in the next five years or so, you will have this or that ailment. So they are now better able to help you prevent such ailment from happening to you. That, I think, is also a good sign of better things to come. Because it was not easy getting the 640 Slice CT scanner into Ghana.

And also to get the latest technology of MRI and so on. But we succeeded; and I give credit to the current government of Ghana, to President John Mahama and late President John Attah Mills, for standing by us to make this equipment available to the citizens of Ghana. And, thankfully, the equipment have also been captured in the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). So access to them is not just limited to only the rich and powerful in society,'' beamed a visibly satisfied Sinare.

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