The Upper West Regional Minister, Dr Hafiz Bin Salih, has said that Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) will give incentives to medical doctors who accept postings to hospitals in the region.
Dr Salih announced this on Wednesday (January 8) during a meeting with Dr Patrick Kuma Aboagye, the Acting Director General of the Ghana Health Service, in Wa.
The meeting was for the Minister to submit a report on the circumstances that led to the death of a two-year-old boy at the Wa regional hospital.
He appealed to the Acting Director General to help maintain the old hospital, which will now be used as the Wa Municipal Hospital to provide quality and better health services to the people.
Dr Salih said the people of the Upper West Region were peace-loving and do not discriminate against others based on tribal, political or religious lines and due to that the recommendations in the report will be implemented after the Director General and the Health Minister added their inputs.
He pledged that the new regional hospital would be put to good use to the benefit of the people of the region and beyond.
“On behalf of the RCC and the people of this region I want to promise you that if the new hospital is opened for operation it will be maintained for us to realize the full benefits of it” he said.
“Even because of that I have met with the various MMDAs and MMDCEs to see how we can design an incentive package for medical doctors who accept postings to hospitals in the Upper West Region”
Dr Aboagye said the New Upper West Regional Hospital that was commissioned in August 2019 is to be opened to the public for clinical services on January 9, 2020.
He said plans are far advanced to convert the old regional hospital to a psychiatric institution to serve the purposes of both a municipal hospital and a psychiatric hospital.
On Saturday, November 9, 2019, a two-year-old boy from Boli in the Upper West Region sustained a snake bite and was rushed to the emergency unit of the Upper West Regional Hospital.
The victim was allegedly denied medical treatment due to the closure of the folder room at the time he got to the facility and led to his untimely death, which necessitated the setting up of a committee to investigate the incident.
