Dr Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, the Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), has said a total of 12 health system infrastructure are being upgraded nationwide to enhance delivery of quality healthcare.

Dr Aboagye, who was providing an update on the state of hospitalisation and infrastructure, especially the bed capacity for the treatment of COVID-19 patients at the Ministry of Information's press conference, said government was making every effort to expand both testing, isolation and treatment facilities across the country.

He said progress of work on these new projects have been very impressive, adding that the 40-bed Dodowa facility with an Intensive Care Unit (ICU), to house the Centre for Disease Control, was 80 per cent complete and expressed the hope that it would be handed over by the middle of July, 2020.
He said the remodeling of the Ho Centre was also 30 per cent completed, while other projects in the Greater Accra Region including the Pantang, the Ga East District Hospital, the new Debrah Ward at the 37 Military Hospital and Korle-Bu respectively, were all on course and near completion, to ensure additional bed capacity to accommodate and treat COVID-19 patients.

He said similar projects are ongoing in other regions across the country and were expected to be completed in the coming months.
Dr Aboagye also gave some statistics on the existing bed capacities in some isolation and treatment centres, including the fact that places such as the Toase Centre in the Ashanti Region was currently empty whiles all the 14 beds at the Okomfo-Anokye Teaching Hospital were full; but then there were also some free bed spaces at the Kumasi South Centre among others.

He said presently, the Pentecost Isolation Centre with a 600-bed capacity was holding only 207 people, leaving spaces for 393; and out of the 85 spaces at the Ga East District Hospital only 30 were currently occupied by patients, leaving a space for 55 patients; while all the 160 beds at the Prampram center were also empty.

The Director-General urged the public to strictly observe the social distancing, hand washing and mandatory wearing of face masks regulations, as the only proven way to slow down the record of COVID-19 infections and prevent the needless deaths.
He called on religious and traditional leaders to join in the educational campaign on COVID-19, to drum home the need for all to remain alert and exhibit responsible behaviour.

The 496 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, has pushed Ghana's cumulative count to 18,630 as at July 02, 2020, with 14,046 recoveries and 117 deaths.