Winneba Trauma /Specialist Hospital underutilised, Daily Graphic

The Trauma and Specialist Hospital built in Winneba to take care of the general health needs of the people is being underutilised, a year after its inauguration.
The facility, which was built at a cost of 18 million Euro by the Government of Ghana, with support from The Netherlands Government, was meant particularly to cater for accident victims on the Accra-Cape Coast-Takoradi road.
A year after its inauguration, very few patients patronise the fully equipped modern facility.
The 120-bed hospital was initially intended to be a district hospital but was later redesigned into a specialist hospital.
From January to October this year, the Outpatient Department (OPD) had recorded 28,909 clients, out of which 1,868 were admitted at the hospital.
Municipal Hospital
Ironically, the Winneba Municipal Hospital, which was established in 1929 and lacks most of the facilities at the Trauma Centre, is heavily patronised by the people.
The former, which was partly destroyed by fire in May this year, seems to be the preference of the people, as it records an average of about 4,000 OPD clients every month.
 During a visit to the two facilities last Friday to ascertain how they are utilised, the Minister of Health, Ms Sherry Ayittey, considered that the two hospitals must be integrated to ensure their effective use.
She further suggested that the Municipal Hospital be used as an outpatient centre, while the Trauma and Specialist Hospital was used for special and emergency cases.
To expatiate the integration process, she said a committee would immediately be set up by the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service (GHS) to oversee to the process.
The challenges
Touching on human resource, which was identified as one major problem facing the two hospitals, the Director-General of the GHS, Dr Ebenezer Appiah Denkyira, said authorities in the health sector were working to ensure that medical officers were deployed to the various hospitals across the country.
The Medical Director of the Trauma and Specialist Hospital, Dr Richard S. Anongura, said the human resource was inadequate to provide the health care needed and that had resulted in the poor attendance at the hospital.
He added that the hospital needed an accreditation from the National Health Insurance Scheme as a secondary referral facility.