The Tamale Teaching Hospital (TTH) last Friday, launched its 50th anniversary celebration in Tamale with the unveiling of an anniversary logo.
The year-long anniversary is on the theme: ‘TTH@50; Changing the Narrative, Repositioning for Excellence.’
Speaking at the launch, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of TTH, Dr Adam Atiku said the then regional hospital was faced with numerous constrains including chronic shortage of doctors, due to perpetual unwillingness of doctors to accept postings to northern Ghana.
He said services provided were reduced to basic medical services with most of the complex cases being referred to Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) and Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH).
The CEO said the upgraded of the hospital to teaching hospital status in 2008 and the establishment of School of Medicine and Health Sciences at the University for Development Studies (UDS-SMHS) had since trained more than thousands of the doctors.
He said all these train doctors were currently serving in every party of the country as health professionals.
Dr Atiku stated that through the continued support of successive governments, partners and collaborators and all stakeholders, the TTH, since its upgrading into a tertiary level facility, had undergone significant transformations especially in the areas of infrastructural and human resource development.
He commended the past and the present governments for the completion of phases I and II of the hospital’s expansion and upgrading project which included the renovation of the old hospital structure and the construction of new state-of-the-art service areas, such as the Accident and Emergency, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Internal Medicine and Pathology Blocks among others.
The CEO said the hospital approximately 800-bed capacity and a staff strength of almost 3,300, adding that it was the current third largest tertiary referral facility in Ghana.
He said the hospital provided tertiary level care for clients across the five regions of the north and as well as clients from neighbouring Burkina Faso, Togo and La Cote D’Ivoire.
Dr Atiku added that the hospital attended to about 120,000 outpatients, 20,000 in-patients annually and conducted nearly 8,000 deliveries every year.
The Deputy Minister of Health, Alhaji Mahama Asei Seini, commended the management of the hospital and urged them to be discipline in the discharge of their duties as health professionals.
He called on them to work as a team toward the purpose for which the hospital was established to serve its good course.
The Overlord of Dagbon, Ndan Ya-Na Mahama Abukari urged the staff of the hospital to re-programme and position the hospital to match its sister teaching hospitals in the country.
He said through that they could only adequately cater for the tertiary medical needs of the inhabitants of its catchment areas.
The Northern Regional Minister, Alhaji Shani Alhassan Sayibu, called on the workers of the hospital to unite as one family to move the hospital as a tertiary facility to the highest level in the country.
He said it was the only hospital that they could boast of and it was time they keep every eye on the facility for it progress.
The Tamale Teaching Hospital was then called Tamale General Hospital and was established by Gen. I.K Acheampong, the then Head-of-State in 1974.
The main idea of the establishment of the hospital was to serve the healthcare needs of the people of Tamale and the Northern Regions of Ghana, that’s the Upper East and the Upper West Regions.
FROM YAHAYA NUHU NADAA, TAMALE
