The high capacity urine and body fluid analyser, the first of its kind in West Africa and touted as a real bolster for specialist healthcare delivery in the Ashanti Region, was provided by the Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA), through SYSMEX, a Japanese world class electronic health equipment manufacturer.

It is under JICA’s collaborative two-year project with the Japanese private sector for the dissemination of the technology of the device.The latest generation of urine analyser system could perform a range of urine and other body fluid analysis for 70 samples within an hour, bringing its total daily output in excess of 1,200 with accurate and more specific results of the biochemical contents of samples.

The device can also pick up early signals of diseases arising out of organ malfunction or tissue damage.Speaking at the inauguration in Kumasi on Tuesday, Dr Oheneba Owusu-Danso, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of KATH said the machine has enhanced the referral facility’s capacity to scale-up laboratory services to other health facilities in the Region, both private and public and make positive impacts on specialists care for patients.

He hailed the gesture as a great milestone, which would re-position KATH as the leading provider of specialists’ healthcare services in West Africa and thanked JICA, SYSMEX and other partners, for selecting KATH as one of the two facilities in Africa to benefit from the project.

Mr Hirofumi Hosh, Chief Representative of JICA said the Agency has been in the fore-front of providing schemes that supported the development agenda of African nations and was upbeat that the latest gesture, which opens another page of such partnership, would be fruitful.

He said Japan had aided the country in the health sector in the areas of child nutrition and in Agricultural mechanization adding that the cost-effective, self-supporting equipment would go a long way to boost health care delivery in the country.

Mr Tomita Koji, Deputy Head of Missions of the Japanese Embassy said the project was in right direction to ease Africa’s infrastructure and equipment challenge to battle the huge burden of the rising incidence of non-communicable diseases.

Mr Eric Osei, Executive Director of SYSMEX in a brief overview of the project, said the project, which starts in August this year, will end in February 2020 and that the centrality of KATH’s location and the fact that it is a referral centre serving a huge clientele from the three Northern Regions and other neighbouring countries, informed its selection for piloting.

The various components for the project ranged from training, maintenance and research.

Mr Simon Osei-Mensah, the Ashanti Regional Minister called for a good maintenance culture from the staff and pleaded with them to be more patient with the ‘patients’ seeking medical care at the facility.