After a heartbreaking report which uncovered the needless child deaths at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region, The Multimedia Group in collaboration with the office of the First Lady is organising an event to raise funds to build an emergency maternity ward at the hospital.
The fundraising event is aimed at mobilising at least Ȼ10 million to help in saving lives of women and children at KATH.
At least four children die a day through congestion at Ghana’s second largest referral hospital.
“In a day we can lose six to seven babies. On a bad day we can lose ten in a day,” a nurse at the facility confirmed.
A visit to the hospital by a pregnant woman is more of a torturous test of faith with the woman uncertain over whether she will return home together with her baby alive. In many cases, they don’t.
Joy News’ Seth Kwame Boateng in his hugely excruciating documentary, “Next to Die” captured how the joy of childbirth at KATH mostly turns into an agony of child death for many families.
He explored how a 43-year-old maternity block has remained uncompleted whilst mothers, children suffocate in a congested functional facility that is simply incapable of coping with the large numbers pregnant women and their children that are referred there.
Doctors, nurses with skill and experience have been left helpless under such a situation with most of them doing their best to save lives.
The documentary touched the hearts of many with individuals, institutions promising to contribute to solve the problem.
President Nana Akufo-Addo has visited the facility and given the health minister Kwaku Agyemang Manu at least two years to complete the 1000-bed project to ameliorate the situation.
His wife Rebecca Akufo-Addo and the wife of the Vice President Samira Bawumia have all committed to finding a lasting solution to the KATH canker.
Ahead of the completion of work on the 1000-bed maternity block, the First Lady together with The Multimedia Group, the parent company of Joy FM, is raising funds to build a one-storey building to ease the congestion at the facility.
“I am told by the Engineers that it will cost about Ȼ10 million to put the one storey building up and so I implore all Ghanaians who would want to help to come and help raise funds,” Rebecca Akufo-Addo said in an interview.
The fundraising event will be held at the office of the First Lady at Ridge in Accra at 5:00 PM Thursday, May 4, 2017.
Seth Kwame Boateng says a number of companies have already shown keen interest in supporting the effort to raise Ȼ10 million for the one-story building project at KATH.
Many others are expected to attend the programme and contribute their widow’s mite for a worthy cause.