Enchi Government Hospital Needs Modern Equipment

Dr Emmanuel K. Coomson, Medical Superintendent at the Enchi Government Hospital in the Aowin Municipality in the Western North Region has lamented that the equipment at the Hospital has become obsolete and needs to be replaced for the effective administration of health care delivery in the municipality.

He also mentioned the lack of space at the laboratory coupled with inadequate equipment to run certain services, scans and investigations as some of the major challenges hampering health care delivery at the Hospital and called on the government and the benevolent society to assist them to be able to run quality health delivery.

Speaking in an interview with igoghana, Dr Coomson mentioned other challenges facing health care delivery at the Hospital as inadequate vehicles especially ambulances and bad roads leading to the Hospital and the town which deter some doctors and nurses to accept postings to the area.

According to him, the government through the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service (GHS) should extend the rural allowance that is offered to staff who accept postings to the rural areas to the doctors and nurses who would be posted to the area as an incentive to motivate them to accept postings to the area.

He narrated that the Hospital which was built in 1973 was not meant for a district hospital and therefore lacks space to contain some facilities and accommodate all the staff citing that only 36 staff were accommodated by the Hospital out of the 396 staff, representing 11 per cent which is a challenge.

He further narrated that the Hospital was in need of doctors for critical condition treatments and dentists and pleaded with the government to consider adding them to the Agenda 111 health initiative.

However, he commended the efforts of the government for making them a region on their own which has improved the nurses-patient ratio, OPD attendance and general functions of the Hospital.

Dr Coomson who is also a Family Physician Specialist mentioned malaria (recording 25.96%), joint pains (recording 18.8%), Upper Respiratory Tract Infections (recording 12.19%) and Diarrhoea (recording 11.2%) as the top four prevalent diseases for the year 2021.

He attributed the Upper Respiratory Tract Infections to the bad nature of the roads generating a lot of dust and urged the residents to adhere to the wearing of masks to help control the situation.

He further disclosed that stomach ulcers were among the top ten prevalent cases due to unprescribed medications especially pain killers and called on the public to desist from the practise which can be dire on their health.