PHOTOS: New Mother and Baby Unit at KATH ready for commissioning

The new ultramodern Mother and Baby Unit at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital is ready for commisioning.

The facility, built in 5 months will house Maternity, Neonatal and Pediatric Intensive Care units.

The project is expected to help bring down the high mortality rate at Ghana’s second biggest Teaching Hospital as it will help address the insufficient space and equipment there.

A JoyNews Special Assignment documentary by Seth Kwame Boateng which highlighted the needless deaths of mothers and babies at the hospital mainly due to congestion is the reason this facility has been built to save lives.

The First Lady Rebecca Akufo-Addo and her Foundation partnered the Multimedia Group Limited to raise funds for the project.

This means the facility lacked the capacity to cater for patients referred to Ghana’s second largest hospital and the only teaching hospital in the Ashanti region.

The new facility, with a total built area of 2,722 square meters  will provide the staff and patients adequate space for different types of procedures.

This will help reduce infections which causes sickness and mortality.

Available birthing beds and theaters will see an increase from 2 to 9 2 to 3 respectively . There would be an increase from  the current capacity from 4 to 12 simultaneous births.

Cots and incubators would shoot up simultaneously from the existing  situation where 4 infants shared a cot,  breeding  cross contamination and cross infection.

120  cots and up to 20 incubators are being provided to ensure  single cot or incubator per infant, reducing cross contaminations.

The facility is built of manufactured Concrete Insulated Structural Panel that can withstand earthquakes, fires and explosions, and it has been extensively tested and certified at Ghana Standard Authority.