Government to take over Worawora EP Church Hospital

Worawora (V/R), July 28, GNA - Nurses and paramedical staff of the Worawora Hospital in the Jasikan District have threatened to go on strike if the E. P. Church tried to sabotage the government's plan to take over the administration of the hospital.

Mr Seku Avornyo, a spokesman for the workers, issued the threat after Mr Solomon Kwame Donkor, the Jasikan District Chief Executive, stopped the staff from embarking on a strike action last Monday.

The spokesman said, since Prof Agyeman Badu Akorsah, the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, announced the government's intension to take over the hospital early this year, some members of the E.P. Church were going round spreading false news about the take over. He said the hospital, with 100 beds and a nursing training school, was handed over to the E.P. church in 1993 following a promise that the church would help revamp its operations.

But over the past six years, the hospital has been neglected and is now in a deplorable state.

"It therefore came as a relief when the Director-General announced the intension of the government to take over the hospital again, and re-open the nurses training school," Mr Avornyo said.

He called on the government to ignore the move by the E.P. Church to sabotage the administration of the hospital and that the entire workers of the hospital were not ready to work under the E.P. Church administration.

"No church member has visited the hospital for the past five years to tackle the problem the hospital is facing."

Mr Donkor assured the workers that the government would take over the hospital and told them to channel their grievances through the appropriate channel for redress.

Barima Owusu Afari, the Nkousuohene of the Worawora Traditional Area, told the GNA of the traditional council's support for the government bid to take over hospital.

The hospital was built in 1955 by the British government, was then managed by the E.P. church but was handed over to the government in 1967.

The E.P. Church convinced the community to hand over the hospital to it in 1993 with the promise to revamp the place.