The construction of a theatre for the Kpone Polyclinic has stalled.

The project was started in 2019 with funding from the Coastal Development Authority (CoDA) to improve healthcare delivery in the municipality and beyond.

The contractor has currently packed out of the project site.

With construction works now stalled, the hospital refers surgical cases to the Tema General Hospital.

The Kpone Polyclinic is about the biggest health facility in the immediate surroundings of Kpone, Dawhenya and neighbouring communities.

Due to inadequate infrastructure, patients have been cramped in wards while others have to lie on beds in the corridors.

It serves more than 50,000 people but lacks dental and x-ray units, among other key services.

Appeal

The Senior Medical Officer in-charge of the facility, Dr Dorothea Otchere-Keelson, has consequently appealed to government to complete the project.

She said the polyclinic had the required cadre of health workers to ensure quality service delivery but inadequate infrastructure had proven a major challenge.

“If you have a high calibre of staff but infrastructure is still a problem, it is more frustrating to the person because the scope of service will be limited,” she told the Daily Graphic.

Dr Otchere-Keelson said apart from providing primary healthcare services, the facility also treated high incidence of trauma cases and complicated cases of non-communicable diseases.

She also appealed to corporate bodies within the Kpone catchment area to contribute towards the completion of the theatre block to improve access to better healthcare delivery.

Anniversary

The polyclinic has launched its 25th anniversary celebration to mark the milestone.

The Kpone Municipal Health Director, Dr Esther Priscilla Danquah, said at the launch that currently, there were nine health facilities in the municipality that comprised a polyclinic, a community-based health planning and services (CHPS) compound, and seven health centres, but indicated that they were not enough considering the size of the population and the area.

She said the municipality, which stretches from the coast to the southern lower slopes of the Akuapem mountains, would need more public health facilities at vantage points to make health services available and accessible to the people.

While commending the government's intention to construct a 400-bed municipal hospital for which the President cut the sod last year, she also appealed to the government, through the municipal assembly, to expedite work on the theatre project at the polyclinic.

Community involvement

The Deputy Director for Clinical Care at the Greater Accra Regional Health Directorate, Dr Salamatu Atta Nantogma, who launched the silver jubilee celebration of the facility, stressed the importance of community involvement in health service delivery, and urged managers of the facility to engage with the various stakeholders in the community if they were to build a healthy future.

The Member of Parliament for Kpone Katamanso, Mr Joseph Akuerteh Tettey, said in an interview that he had identified the project as one of his priority programmes, and pledged to apply his share of the District Assembly Common Fund to support the completion of the theatre.

The Chief of Kpone Nmlistakpo, Nii Tetteh Ogle II, applauded the health workers for their continuous dedication to duty irrespective of the inconvenience over the past 25 years.

The health facility started in 1991 as a small clinic under the initiative of the Rotary Club of Tema, in collaboration with the health directorate in Tema and the Kpone Traditional Council.

It was elevated to a health centre in 1996 and inaugurated by the then President, Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings.

In 2020, it was upgraded to the status of a polyclinic by the Health Facilities Regulatory Agency.