C/R. Awutu Health Center Under Pressing Challenges

The Awutu Bereku Health Center is confronted with pressing challenges that need to be attended to in order to ensure its smooth operation.

The facility apart from its challenge with space is facing a serious electrical problem that can result in a fire outbreak which will put patients and health workers at risk. There’s more in the following report filed by central regional correspondent soireenews. 

It is the only health facility within the Awutu Bereku township, capital of the Awutu Senya District.

Even though it serves a town with a voter population of nearly 20, 000, the Awutu Health Center is confronted with dire challenges.

Built by PPAG Ghana, a non-governmental organization decades ago, when the town has a lesser population, the center has seen no major renovation and expansion works causing a huge space deficit at the facility.

The OPD, maternal wards, and records department of the facility struggle with just a little space available.

Even though a former Member of Parliament for the area, Hannah Serwaa Tetteh began a building project to serve as the triage area for the center, it was left at the foundation stage when the former lost her seat in the 2016 elections.

At the moment, the facility is also facing critical electrical problems which when overlooked can result in a fire outbreak putting patients and health workers at risk.

Most of the facility’s electrical gadgets have been damaged as a result of the problem.

The health facility also lacks an alternative source of power causing health workers to either rely on flashlights or transfer patients even in emergency cases during lights out.

Speaking to  Soireenews during a presentation of an ambulance to the facility by the Member of Parliament of the area, Gloria Kaku, a physician assistant at the facility called on stakeholders to rise to the occasion and assist the facility in solving these challenges.

She also bemoaned how individuals have erected various structures at the frontage of the facility, compromising visibility.

Meanwhile, she lauded the MP, Gizella Agbortui Tetteh for the maintenance work done on the facility’s ambulance.

The Member of Parliament in her bid to improve healthcare has pledged to tackle the challenges one after the other.
 
She has begun by maintaining the facility’s ambulance.

Donated to the center in 2016 by her sister who is a former MP of the area, the vehicle had seen no maintenance work even though it was heavily relied upon in emergencies. Its breaks, lights, suspension, and interior equipment were completely in bad shape.

Spending over GHC 9, 000, the vehicle has been put into good shape and was handed back to the facility by the MP.

According to the MP, Gizella Tetteh, in order to prevent any possible outbreak of fire at the facility, she’d employ the services of electrical engineers to rewire the entire building following which she’d consider the other challenges.

She spoke to Soireenews Reporter during the presentation.

Yaw Opoku