The Member of Parliament for Sunyani West, Ignatius Baffour-Awuah at the weekend presented an ambulance valued at GH� 25,000 to the Health Centre at Nsoatre in the constituency and promised to do more to help to improve health care delivery in the area.
At the well attended ceremony at the premises of the Health Centre, the MP said the gesture followed a request made by the Chiefs and Elders in the community to him for the facility.
Mr Baffour-Awuah said his focus was on the good health of the people and announced that he had also provided GH� 5000 for the free registration of people under the National Health Insurance Scheme.
He cautioned against the misuse of the ambulance, stressing that it was not meant to carry corpses but strictly to convey sick people to health facilities.
The MP offered to provide the salary of the driver of the ambulance until his employment was regularised.
Mr Kwadwo Badu, a citizen of the community resident in Japan, also presented four wheelchairs to the Centre.
Receiving the items Ms Eva Aryee, Sunyani West District Director of Health Services, thanked the MP for his "wonderful gesture" and promised that the facility would be taken good care of to ensure its longer lifespan.
She noted the District's significant march towards the establishment of efficient and effective referral services in Brong Ahafo and Sunyani West in particular.
"Not too long ago, February this year the District took delivery of an ambulance donated by Ghana Nuts Company in Techiman through the kind deed of an illustrious son of the District, which is stationed at the Chiraa Health Centre to serve the eastern zone of the District.
"This means in effect that our District can now boast of an effective referral and emergency medical evacuation service on the busy and
accident-prone Techiman-Sunyani-Berekum corridor", Ms Aryee said.
The District Director stressed that the ambulance would serve a useful purpose to reduce maternal and infant morbidities and mortalities in the District.
She said the power supply to the area needed urgent upgrading, whilst the Centre also needed expansion to enable it to cope with the pressures on it.
Ms Aryee appealed to endowed citizens of the community to contribute to the upliftment of the District.