An abandoned Agenda 111 project in Assin Darmang in the Assin South District, which is 85 percent complete, has been overrun by weeds, making it a den for weed smokers and snakes. 

Machines have been fixed, but the warehouses sat tightly locked, as if the whole place had been frozen in time. 

Erosion had rapidly destroyed the previously leveled ground, a consequence of the slanting topography and the absence of well-laid gutters to channel run-off.  

Heavy rains had cut gullies where the soil is exposed, undermining foundations and leaving parts of the site uneven and dangerous. 

At the entrance to the last building, clearly demarcated as a morgue, the reporter and an escort narrowly escaped a bite from a gigantic cobra that lay coiled near the doorway, a stark reminder of the neglected site, which had become a den for dangerous snakes. 

Several other snakes streaked away as the GNA toured their abode, vanishing into crevices and leaf litter, instinctively fleeing the threat of humans. 

However, a group of youths, most of them under 30, smoking openly in one of the rooms, quickly rushed in to assist. 

They showed no qualms about the reporter's presence, and when he approached them, they boldly asked for money to buy food after killing the cobra. 

The Assin South District Chief Executive (DCE), Mr Jonathan Birikorang, when contacted, assured that the facility would continue to be urgently completed. 

The DCE, in an interview with GNA, said the magnificent facility, intended to serve over 120,000 people, was on the drawing board as President John Mahama had promised to complete all ongoing and abandoned projects.  

He said, regardless of one's political inclination, the district remained united for the project completion, testifying to why residents had volunteered to clear weeds at the site. 

“The sight breaks my heart,” he said. “Since I assumed office, I have visited the site many times.  

'It is unacceptable that such an important facility could not be completed," he stated. 

The DCE lamented how residents travelled long distances for medical care, as the district's only Community Health Planning and Services Compound and health centres were not enough, putting the lives of residents at risk. 

The situation, he said, had forced residents to travel kilometres to seek critical medical care in neighbouring districts' health facilities like the St. Francis Xavier Hospital in Assin Central, the Abura-Dunkwa Government Hospital in Abura-Aseibu-Kwamankese, and the Asikuma Government Hospital in the Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa district.  

Similarly, he said it had put pressure on neighbouring hospitals and productivity was affected when patients and caregivers spent hours on the road.  

“When emergency cases cannot get timely care near home, complications rise, and recovery becomes hard,” he said. 

"It is unfortunate that we do not have any polyclinic or hospital here. This facility will really help the people, and I believe the President would help complete it for us.” 

Mr Birikorang also lamented that the district’s only ambulance has been out of service for months, warning that the breakdown compounded the risks faced by residents scattered across a largely rural district with communities far apart. 

In an interview, the District Director of the Ghana Health Service, Ms Susana Bill, expressed delight at President John Dramani Mahama’s pledge to complete several Agenda 111 projects and appealed for the district’s hospital to be included in the programme.  

Completing the Agenda 111 project in the district, she said, would strengthen the government's Primary Health Care programme by expanding local capacity for basic and emergency care, reducing travel times for rural patients, and easing pressure on the big hospitals.  

Improved district infrastructure would enable more services like maternal and child health, routine surgeries, diagnostics, and stabilisation to be delivered at the community level, thereby lowering the volume of patient referrals to regional and tertiary hospitals.  

She asked for parallel investments in trained personnel, medicines, and ambulance services for completed facilities to be impactful. 

The Chief of Darmang, Nana Okofo Kwadwo Benti II, described the absence of a district hospital as “unfortunate” and appealed to the government to prioritise and complete the hospital project.  

Some residents at Assin Darmang, Nyankomasi Ahenkro, and Homaho, including a mother of three, Madam Matilda Asare Boadu, spoke of midnight searches for motorists willing to risk sending them to a hospital in other districts. 

"Our plea is simple and urgent: finish the hospital, equip and staff it, so that the next mother in labour, and the next person in an accident need not travel long distances for care," she said.