The Minister of Trade and Industry, Kobina Tahir (KT) Hammond has urged the general public to keep their hopes of seeing a functional La General Hospital alive, as the government was exploring alternative financing mechanisms to re-construct the facility that was serving the health needs of thousands of people.
He said the government was in the advanced stage of securing funding to put up the health facility in its original design, assuring that the contractor (Poly Chandra) for the project would soon move to site.
Updating members of the Parliamentary Press Corps on the state of the La General Hospital on the sidelines of parliamentary sitting on Friday, October 10, 2023 KT Hammond, who holds a Cabinet portfolio, said funds to reconstruct the health facility had almost been secured by the government, stressing that the health needs of the people remain a priority to the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
“A decision has been made that the La General Hospital is going to be reconstructed in its original design. It has been agreed by the President and his Cabinet that that design is what is going to be put up beautifully at the same place and indeed, they are about starting work.
“The Finance Minister is committed to raising money to make sure that the edifice is put up the way it was originally designed and it is going to be as beautiful as it was designed. There haven’t been any changes; there hasn’t been any change of mind; there hasn’t been any devaluing of the structure or anything”, noted KT Hammond, who assured the media, whilst speaking on behalf of the Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu.
KT Hammond’s remarks were in sharp contrast to that of the Majority Leader and Leader of Government Business in the Parliament.
On Tuesday, November 7, 2023, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, while contributing to a statement made by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Member of Parliament (MP) for La Dadekotopon, Rita Odoley Sowah, said loan facilities that were secured and approved by Parliament some time ago had not been forthcoming, attributing the challenge to the hold-up of funds by the sponsors of the facility.
He told Parliament that the sponsors of the health facility withheld the funds when Ghana signed onto the International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan deal, an action he noted has spurred the government to look for alternative financing mechanisms to reconstruct the La General Hospital.
“Mr. Speaker, until the nation is given a clean bill of health by the IMF, it is going to be difficult for the funding to be released. This is why the government now wants to situate it within the context of Agenda 111, and that will mean that the facility will have to be scaled down a bit”, he stressed.
Madam Odoley Sowah, in her statement, described the state of the La General Hospital as a never-to-be-fulfilled promise by the government after three years of being razed down. She said the situation epitomises the lack of planning and excessive politicking.
KT Hammond, who is also the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Adansi Asokwa, sounding so optimistic about the reconstruction exercise, described his update and that of the Majority Leader’s as a “cross-purpose”, explaining that at the time Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu was responding to Odoley Sowah’s statement, a decision was being made by Cabinet at a meeting he was part of.
He insisted that the reconstruction of the La General Hospital would soon take off. “A new financing arrangement has been put in place and the hospital would be put up. Yesterday [Thursday], as I checked, the Finance Minister was about making money available to the contractor”, he noted.
The La General Hospital was established in the early 1960s. Prior to its demolition, it was a five-storey building that had a five-bedroom Emergency unit, Obstetrics and Gynaecology (O&G) department, Surgical department, male and female wards, a General Out-Patient department, a Waste management facility and an Incinerator.
It also had a newer building for Family Planning, Imaging (Scan) and HIV services built with the support of the US government, after President Obama’s 2009 visit to the maternal ward of the hospital.
The hospital served the health needs of communities around La, Osu and Teshie as a major referral centre and a primary point of call for a varied number of medical complications and emergencies.
However, the hospital infrastructure after six decades of constant operation, developed structural deficiencies with patients and medical staff constantly calling on the government to either renovate or replace the building to reduce or eliminate the danger it poses to them.
On March 1, 2020, the hospital was closed down with staff transferred to other facilities for the project to commence in earnest.
In August 2020, President Akufo-Addo cut the sod to signify the commencement of the project by Poly Chandra, an Indian construction firm, with the assurance that the government had secured a €68 million credit facility, complete with a €3.9 million insurance coverage.
The hospital when reconstructed will feature an outpatient department, well-equipped inpatient wards, comprehensive maternity and Neonatal services, a Surgical unit complete with four modern operating theatres, a state-of-the-art accident and emergency department, a dedicated public health department, a well-stocked Pharmacy unit, a sophisticated Laboratory, a modern administration section, and an imaging area that can boast of a CT Scan, X-ray room, Ultrasound, Fluoroscopy, Mammography units, a Physiotherapy unit, and a Mortuary.
By Stephen Odoi-Larbi
