The Kunta Kinte Orthopaedic Hospital at Akuapem-Mampong, a private non-profit making hospital, is to start operating from Monday, October 01. The hospital would be opened from 0800 hours to 1630 hours daily for Out-Patient Department (OPD) services and these include physician consultation, laboratory services and pharmacy services, physiotherapy and orthopaedic workshop service. The Managing Director of the hospital, Ms Brenda T. Powel, told the GNA in an interview that the orthopaedic workshop service would involve the construction of orthopaedic shoes and callipers and later the workshop would build orthopaedic limbs. Ms Powel said Phase One of services at the hospital would not include patient admissions. Admission of patients would start during the second phase early next year. The hospital would launch its third phase programme nearly next year under which it would use its three operating theatres. Ms Powel said with time, management of the hospital would be considering the extension of working hours during week days and if possible at the weekends to make the facility more accessible. She said when the hospital became fully operational it would take care of other diseases and offer its services with more focus on client satisfaction in a way that the hospital could develop into a centre of excellence on the African continent. Ms Powel said the management of the hospital was working on arrangements to get some of the best orthopaedic surgeons in the world to offer specialized services at the centre from time to time. The over 4.5 million-dollar hospital is the brain child of Mr Bryan Oswald Lowe, an 86-year-old African American who adopted Mampong-Akuapem as his ancestral home, and has been working on the construction of the hospital since 2001. Source: GNA