Barring any hitches, contractors working on the Ashanti Regional Hospital at Sewua in the Bosomtwe District will soon hand over the facility to the government for use.

Physical works on the 250-bed capacity hospital have been completed awaiting the provision of power supply and improved access road network to the facility.

The project is expected to ease pressure on the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH), Ghana’s second-largest referral facility when it becomes operational.

“This hospital has a little bit of history. The arrangement to bring in a contractor to do eight hospitals including this one started in President Kuffuor’s time,” Health Minister, Kwaku Agyemang Manu gives the history behind the project.

This is the Ashanti Regional Hospital, located at Sawua in the Bosomtwe District.

It is part of eight hospital projects, code-named, The Ghana 8 No Hospital Project funded with $339million under the construction of Euroget De Invest Contractors.

It will be the third biggest health facility in the region, next to the Komfo Anokye Hospital and the yet-to-be-completed 500-bed Military Hospital at Afari.

This modern health facility is fully equipped with gynaecology wards, an intensive-care unit, operation rooms, delivery suites, sterilisation department and medical gas plant for the production of medical gases.

It boasts of an Endoscopy Unit, a rare service in many health facilities in the region.

It has, among other facilities, a sewage treatment biogas plant, water treatment plant, power station and a maintenance department.

“That is almost 100%  of the project; only remaining the testing and the commissioning,” Resident Engineer, Amer Farouk Mahmoud told JoyNews.”

“Our project is a 250-bed regional hospital located in Sawua. The floor is about 30,000 square meters; we have 43 buildings.

The area for the entire project is around  125,000 square meters,” Mr. Mahmoud said.

Like all modern health facilities, the new Ashanti Regional Hospital comes with 20-unit staff accommodation made up of 3 bedrooms each.

But despite the installation of equipment, the facility is yet to be put to use.

Resident Engineer, Amer Farouk Mahmoud, explains why the facility is yet to be handed over to the government.

“We have a critical problem for the power. We have two powerhouses in the project but the power source is not connected to the powerhouse.  Number 2 is the access road; we have a contractor from the Ghana Highway Authority. They started the work but stopped for more than 3-6 months.

“The road is barely motorable. So for the patients and the visitors, it would be hard for them to come to the hospital.”

Health Minister and Member of Parliament for Dormaa Central, Kwaku Agyemang Manu, admits there are some client-obligation facilities yet to be provided by the government.

“We are waiting for a few things. We call them client obligations. The client should bring road to access the facility. The inside and hospital roads are part of the contract. From Sawua town or from the major road to this place is supposed to be done by government,“ Mr. Manu explained.

So how is the Ministry ensuring the facility becomes operational and accessible to residents?

“Here is virtually completed. All the equipment are in place; they are only waiting for constant-continuous power such that we can run the machines after commissioning and testing. And then we would have a full-fledged Ashanti Regional Hospital.” Health Minister, Kwaku Agyemang Manu has said.

“We’ve had one or two meetings with the President himself. He is putting pressure in addition to ours and we believe we will get some money to get these things done as quickly as possible,” Mr Manu talks of efforts.

The Sewua Hospital is bounded by the Infectious Disease Treatment Center, one of 12 facilities built with Covid-19 funding across the country to manage infectious diseases.