Pantang Hospital Gets Maternity Block

Pregnant women living around Pantang Hospital in the La-Nkwantang Madina Municipal Assembly in Accra will now heave a sigh of relief following the commissioning of a state-of-the-art maternity block for the hospital.

Before the commissioning of the new maternity block which was funded by the government of Japan at a cost of $84,000, pregnant women who visited the hospital only received ante-natal care but were referred to other hospitals for delivery.

This development had arisen because the hospital lacked a delivery room and other relevant equipment to carry out safe delivery.

The new maternity block has two wards which have the capacity to admit 10 women after delivery, a delivery room with two beds and an out-patient department (OPD) with a visitors' lounge.

Commissioning the block, the Japanese Ambassador to Ghana, Kaoru Yoshimura, said the people of Japan were moved by the plight of pregnant women who have to travel up to 30 kilometers to seek maternal and reproductive healthcare services.

He said the funding for the project was under the Japanese Grant Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Projects (GGHSP) through a local non-governmental organisation, Basic Needs.

The ambassador was hopeful that the hospital would make the most out of the facility to provide safe basic maternal and reproductive healthcare for pregnant women and children within the hospitals catchment area.

Medical Director of the hospital, Dr Anna Puklo-Dzadey, who expressed her appreciation to the government of Japan for the donation, mentioned that apart from achieving the unmet needs of the pregnant mothers, the facility will serve as a training centre for the nurses at the hospital's nurses and midwifery training school.

Dr Puklo-Dzadey appealed for an operating theatre and a gynaecologist to man the facility.

 By Solomon Ofori