Head of Engineering and Architecture at the Ministry of Health, has explained circumstances leading to a decision to demolish the KATH maternity and children's block whose construction has stalled for 45 years.

According to Raichard Vanderpuye who is also Project Lead of the Mother & Child project at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, pulling down the building was not an option, however, the decision has become necessary to guarantee a long life span for the building.

"The Minister of Health himself really wishes to complete this building so the option of demolishing was not on the table but there are a myriad of issues," he said.

Speaking on JoyFM's Super Morning Show, Dr. Vanderpuye disclosed that based on advice from contractors, it would cost the country less to pull down the building and start construction from scratch rather than continuing with the current project since it has grown very weak following it being abandoned for many years.

"The contractor moved to site to start work and mind you, to complete it meant that we were going to have to do some rehabilitation, some remodeling of the existing structures which meant that we needed to peel off certain parts of the structures to rebuild.

"It is in the course of this activity that the contractor realised that we are going to have to deal with more than we had anticipated because the further they went, the more problems they saw," he said.

The comments came after a decision by government to pull down the structure.

The multi-structure Maternity and Children’s Block at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital is to be pulled down for reconstruction after failing a structural integrity test.

Providing further clarification, Dr Vanderpuye explained that based on a report from the contractor, the Ministry of Health has decided that the best option is to demolish, based on the information form the contractor.

"We already have information from previous reports where the Ghana Institution of Engineers had recommended two approaches. Reinforce as option one, or demolish as option two. We chose the reinforcement option," he said.

"Looking at some of the things that would happen, and the cost of the reinforcement, we feel now that with the new information on the state of disrepair or the structural weakness, it's better we demolish the structure and rebuild," he added.

He further noted that "we have much more if we rebuild because we have the opportunity to make it more modern in terms of planning, health census and health facilities of the 21^st century. We have much more to gain if we rebuild this now."