It has been confirmed that the new Upper West Regional hospital will now start operations on January 9, 2020.

This is contained in a statement released to the press and signed by the Upper West regional director, Dr. Osei Kufuor Afreh.

He said the hospital would be opened to the public for clinical and non-clinical services. This follows the successful acquisition recently of provisional credentialing from the Health Facility Regulatory Agency (HeFRA) and the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) as a Secondary Level Health Referral Facility.

The new Upper West Regional hospital was started in 2010 and expected to be completed in 2014 but delayed owing to some constructional challenges.

The $53 million 160-bed facility was executed by Euroget De-Invest. The state of the art hospital was however commissioned on August 18, 2019, by President Akufo Addo.

Four months after the commissioning, the facility was not opened to the public let alone attending to its first patient.

Several concerned groups and individuals in the region expressed worry over the inactivity of the facility.

The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) also cashed in on the issue taking the President and the Ghana Health Service to town for commissioning a hospital that is not in use.

Meanwhile, the old Upper West regional hospital has now been downgraded to the status of a Municipal hospital.