A new ultra-modern theatre for the Maternity Department of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital would soon be operational. Prof. Yaw Kwawukume, head of the Maternity Department of the hospital said, the need to open a new theatre was necessary because the current theatre was not suitable to serve the medical needs of the large number of patients who visited the department, daily. He made this known at the formal presentation of medical supplies worth $350,000, by members of Rotary Club of Accra. The items he said, had come when the unit had occasionally deliberated on the need to acquire an additional theatre for the department. The new theatre, which he said, would be ready in two weeks, would go a long way to save the lives of expectant mothers who needed to undergo Caesarean sections, but had to wait for their turns on the waiting list at the hospital. He said as many as 12 and 15 Caesarean sections are carried out daily at the theatre, with a number of patients dying, because of the absence of adequate equipment. The hospital he said, has been unable to install a new ventilator, since the break-down of the old one, thereby resulting in preventable deaths. He cited an instance involving an emergency case which resulted in the death of a pregnant woman, a few weeks ago, because there were other emergency cases being attended to, at the theatre. “The woman wouldn’t have died, if there was an additional labour theatre,” he empathised. He said human lives lost over the past years would have been avoided if there had been an additional labour theatre. Prof. Kwawukume who suggested to the club to adopt a ward at the department as a symbol of its good gestures over the years to the hospital, thanked the donors for the gesture, and appealed to other individuals and corporate bodies to emulate same, by going to the aid of the department and the hospital, in general. The professor, on behalf of the unit, pledged to put the items to good use, to help serve the purpose for which they were donated. Items donated included monitors, computers and their accessories, a ventilator, anesthetics, delivery and Caesarean sets, mayor stands and beds, among others. The president of Rotary Club of Accra, Mr. Dimitri Avraam, who led the donors said, the club would continue to assist the hospital in any means possible. The club, in November last year, donated a number of medical items to the Children’s Department of the hospital. Rotary Club International is a world-wide non-profit-making organisation, committed to providing for the humanitarian needs of mankind. Its operational offices could be found in all the ten regions of the country. Daily Guide