Esther, an orphan turned queen saved an entire Jew generation in one act of bravery that left a man, Haman hanged on his own gallows.

Several centuries down the line, another woman, Rebecca, exalted in her high office of the First lady has taken a bold step, this time to save a whole Ghanaian generation of pregnant women and their newborn babies who are appointed to die not through the treacherous plan of another man but through a deadly congested facility meant to save the lives it takes.

Save a child, save a mother, campaign, is a Rebecca Akufo-Addo and The Multimedia Group initiative meant to minimise, hopefully end, the heartbreaking story of death at child birth at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.

The facility built in 1954 and served only six million people at the time is now serving 30 million others with no marked expansion arrangement.

The space for mother and children at KATH remain the same in structure but has become a symbol of emotional and psychological torture for many pregnant women.

The structure which should serve as a place for saving lives, a refuge for joy and happiness for families and an orchestra that produces rhythmic sounds of crying of babies, has now become a Gethsemane, place of pain, for many adults who prayed for the fruit of child birth but cursed the pain of child and maternal deaths.

They came gleaming with hope but left with a grimace of hopelessness, dreading the adventure of going through another nine month miracle of child birth that may never be.

Such is the horrifying uncertainty families go through anytime the hour comes for a pregnant mother to give birth at the mother and child unit of KATH.

So when Rebecca, turned Esther announced her campaign to save lives, she saw the possibility of saving a generation, and restoring in mothers, the faith of  hearing the piercing cries of their healthy babies and going home alive and kicking with them.

She was heartbroken by the chilling documentary "Next to die" by Joy News' Seth Kwame Boateng which captured how mothers and their babies die each day as if they were shot by enemy bullets at the war front from a distant target.

It was not a battleground. It was only a place of birth now turned into a dungeon of death because of lack of requisite facilities at Ghana's second largest and reputable hospital.

Through the save a child, save a mother campaign, Mrs Rebecca Akufo-Addo is promising, with the help of an army of philanthropists, business men, to build a one storey maternity ward at a cost Ȼ10 million.

That ward will have five maternity beds, three operating rooms, four emergency delivery beds, 20 incubators and 20 phototherapy units.

It will be an insulated building with forced cooling and it will reduce avoidable deaths by 60-80 percent.

The old dungeon had only two maternity beds, two operating rooms, two incubators with tens of pregnant women queuing, sometimes to be operated upon in a period of an emergency.

In a contest of who can give well and give best, Ghacem, Promasidor, First Atlantic Bank, Interplast, Perez Chapel, announced all lined up with a token contribution to save a new generation of mothers and their unborn children.

Seated on a dais in a colourful sea-blue fitting outfit, the gorgeous, beautiful queen of a first lady dazzled her troops into making offers, cash and pledges towards a worthy cause.  

Anchored by a beautiful blend of a smooth and hard-talking moderators- Kojo Yankson of Joy FM and Afia Pokua, of Adom FM managed to drain the pockets of all who came to save a life.

They came ready to give but had to be caressed in their most sensitive areas- their pockets- in a not too sound economic dispensation.

Ghacem pledged to donate all the cement needed to complete the project. Other companies and diplomatic missions came with cash and pledges amounting to about GHS 7,695,444 on the first day of fund raising.

The donors include,one Foreign mission which doesn't wish to be mentioned but donated 3.5 million cedis. The Japanese Embassy in Ghana also donated $500,000. Ghana Lotteries Authority gave GHS20,000 and pledged to give GHS200,000 more at a later date. Interplast Ghana gave GHS85,000 worth of pipes and paints. Gloria Bartels gave GHS10,000. Apostle Kojo Sarfo gave GHS30,000, GOIL gave GHS250,000, GHAPOHA gave GHS200,000, ZONTA Ladies gave GHS20,000, Unilever Ghana gave GHS20,000, Tony Oteng Gyasi gave GHS25,000, GHACEM promised to provide cement for the project. Perez Chapel gave GHS10,000.