The Melcom Care Foundation has donated medical refrigerators and furniture to 25 health facilities across the country as part of its support for social causes.
Also, the foundation presented shopping vouchers and two television sets to winners in two categories of the 75th Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) Awards scheduled for September this year in recognition of journalists’ role in informing, educating and entertaining the public.
Melcom Care again donated to DRN Ghana, a non-governmental organisation in climate change, in support of its productive investments in educational activities in second cycle schools.
The foundation explained at a presentation ceremony at the Melcom Mall Spintex Road in Accra yesterday that its presentation to the health centres was to help bridge the gap between the health facilities in the urban areas and those in rural communities, with respect to basic but necessary equipment and enhance healthcare delivery in the beneficiary facilities.
Each beneficiary health facility received a refrigerator, while the 37 Military Hospital received an additional set of furniture for its new pathology department.
The beneficiary facilities include the Upper West Regional Hospital, the Tamale Teaching Hospital, the Upper East Regional Hospital, the Ho Teaching Hospital, the Ketu South Municipal Hospital, the Central Aflao Hospital, the Hohoe Government District Hospital and the Sogakope District Hospital.
Others are the Western Regional Hospital, the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital, the Swedru Government Hospital, the Kasoa Central Clinic, the Eastern Regional Hospital, the Kwahu Government Hospital, and the Sunyani Teaching Hospital.
The rest are the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, the Police Hospital in Accra, the 37 Military Hospital, the Greater-Accra Regional Hospital, the National Cardiothoracic Centre, the University of Ghana Medical Centre, the Tema General Hospital, The Trust Hospital, the Lapaz Community Hospital and the Healthnet Airport Medical Centre.
At the ceremony, the Group Director of Communications of Melcom, Godwin Avenorgbo, said the donation was part of a continuing project of Melcom due to its interest in supporting institutions that offered critical services to society.
He said the donation of medical refrigerators was to help “preserve vaccines and blood at the right temperatures. “We have been engaged in blood donation for many years now.
We are preserving blood and storing it, so that any time that anybody needs it, it can be infused. This is the third time we are making a donation of this nature,” Mr Avenorgbo said.
“In 2022, we gave out 10 medical fridges. In 2021, 10 medical fridges. We have doubled the number and increased it to 25 so that more medical centres in the rural communities can benefit,” the Group Communications Director explained.
In an interview with the Daily Graphic, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of National Blood Service, Dr Shirley Owusu Ofori, expressed gratitude to the Melcom Care Foundation for the gesture, especially its collaboration with the Blood Bank to facilitate blood donation.
She stressed the importance of blood preservation and urged the health facilities to put the refrigerators to purposeful use. Dr Ofori, however, called for more people to donate to meet the blood needs of the country.