The Bono Regional Hospital in Sunyani has been upgraded into a teaching hospital, becoming the sixth teaching hospital in the country.
The five other teaching hospitals are Korlebu, Cape Coast, Komfo Anokye, Ho and Tamale.
What this means is that the capacity of the new Bono Regional Teaching Hospital is being enhanced with the state of the art equipment to be able to provide more advanced and critical medical services, which hitherto were being sourced outside the region.
As part of the upgrade, the hospital is expected to have a specialised units such as cardiology, Neurosurgery, dialysis departments among others as well as conduct more research, training of its medical personnel and building collaboration with existing teaching hospitals to enable it deliver better healthcare services to the people of the region and beyond.
The University of Energy and Natural Resources at Sunyani has been designated to train healthcare personnel for the facility and the country as a whole.
The Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, who performed the inaugural ceremony on behalf of the President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, said since February 2023, cabinet approved the memorandum of understanding to convert the Sunyani Regional Hospital into a teaching hospital.
According to him, the government was of the view that the nation’s prosperity was largely tied to the health of the citizens.
This, he said was inspired by government determination to remove barriers and obstacles in the health sector to secure quality healthcare, and make it universally accessible and affordable in harmony and objective of the United Nations sustainable Development Goals three, which was dedicated to ensuring the health and wellbeing of people of all ages.
In pursuit of the country’s health agenda, the president said his administration had improved healthcare from the primary and secondary levels where significant infrastructure and human resources have been developed as evidence in the construction of the agenda 111 projects dotted across the country.
These projects, he said were in various stages of completion, with majority to be completed by the middle of March 2024.
A 60 bed capacity infectious disease centre, the president noted, would be constructed at the Sunyani Teaching Hospital to deal with the outbreak of infectious diseases and boost the capacity of the hospital.
To ensure viable health system, the National Health Insurance Scheme, President Akufo-Addo said was resolving all challenges associated with claims of payment to health providers.
The scheme have registered 17. 2 million people nationwide as at December 2022.
He called on the chiefs and people of the region to continue support the government to deliver on it promises to the people.
The Bono Regional Minister, Justina Owusu Banahene also thanked government for the honour done the region saying, it was a major issue the people of the region were concerned about.
The Medical Director of the new Sunyani Teaching Hospital, Dr Cardinal Newton, said retooling of the facility with specialised equipment over the years had reduced accident and mortality rate to about 30 per cent.
He said, the hospital which was operationalised in 2003, currently had 350 beds which was being improved to 420 bed to enable it render quality healthcare services not only to the people of the region but neighbouring countries.
Nana Bofo Benell, Vice President of Bono Regional House of Chiefs, commended government for ensuring the region gets its fair share of national development and assured that the chiefs and people would do their part for the hospital to grow.
He appealed to the government to give all the necessary support to the new teaching hospital to ensure it operate effectively.
FROM DANIEL DZIRASAH SUNYANI
