The Member of Parliament for the Jirapa Constituency, Cletus Seidu Dapilah, has handed over 160 bedsheets and 160 pillowcases to the St. Joseph Catholic Hospital to help improve patient care and curb hospital-acquired infections.

The intervention follows a joint appeal made by the Jirapa Municipal Health Directorate and the hospital's management to address severe shortages of basic ward logistics at the region's oldest health facility.

Presenting the items, Mr. Dapilah noted that his office swiftly mobilised resources behind the scenes after receiving the request, emphasising his commitment to healthcare delivery in the constituency.

"As a Member of Parliament, I won't neglect health issues because health is life. I want to see my people being healthy so that they can go around to do their normal daily activities," the MP stated, acknowledging the hospital's critical role in serving a massive patient population across the region.

Receiving the items on behalf of the facility, the Jirapa Municipal Health Director, Kaa-Ih Edward, expressed profound gratitude to the MP for his continuous support spanning from the hospital down to the directorate level.

He highlighted the immediate clinical impact the donation will have on the wards.

"With this, it will go a long way to reducing infections because, you know, when patients come to the wards with their bedsheets, they rather get some infections from the hospital. But with this, with their pillows, nosocomial infections and other infections… it will reduce infections," Mr. Edward explained.

Despite the relief brought by the donation, the Acting Medical Superintendent of the St. Joseph Catholic Hospital, Dr. Silas Gbogere, used the occasion to send a distress call to the government, corporate bodies, and benevolent individuals to urgently assist the nearly 70-year-old facility, which is currently buckling under severe infrastructural and equipment deficits.

"You have structures that are no longer very fit… year in year out, we are always battling with leakages here and there. We have to repair works here and there, and that puts a toll on our finances," Dr. Gbogere revealed.

He further lamented the obsolete state of the hospital's life-saving equipment, noting that the facility lacks functional patient monitors and defibrillators, while its ageing X-ray machine and frequently breaking laboratory equipment severely hamper medical diagnostics.

The human resource situation at the hospital is equally dire.

According to Dr. Gbogere, the major facility is currently being managed by only three medical doctors who are forced to work around the clock, leading to severe staff burnout.

While commending the MP for matching the hospital's exact 160-bed capacity with the donation, Dr. Gbogere appealed for even more logistical support, noting that standard infection prevention protocols require at least four sets of bedsheets per bed to allow for frequent changing and sterilisation.