Effective healthcare services delivery in Assin Anyinabrim in the Assin South District is a challenge as the only facility which serves thousands of people lacks beds.
The Assin Anyinabrim Health Centre has only nine beds to serve patients within the district which is located in the Central region.
The challenge is exacerbated by the centre’s additional responsibility toward residents of Asikuma Odoben Brakwa District.
The in-charge, Samuel Ayensu who is a Physician Assistant, said the situation is worrying especially when both sexes and the different age groups have to share the same beds and wards.
“When we have men, women and children all on admission, we separate them with screens which creates a lot of inconveniences,” said Samuel Ayensu, adding that the situation is “unhealthy”.
The community has pulled resources together and constructed a storey building to upscale the facility’s service delivery.
A visit to the site shows foundational works with pillars erected to support the building’s flooring.
However, the project is lagging because it lacks funding; members scrape money together to support it.
Mr Samuel Ayensu, on behalf of the management of the facility and community, pleaded for support to enhance service delivery to the people.
“If there would be support from the public to complete the structure, we can move the maternity and the weighing units there [the new building] to create more space to admit more patients,” he said.
In the meantime, however, he indicated that a range of 15 to 20 beds should make do with the situation.
He spoke to the media when the Member of Parliament for the area, Rev John Ntim Fordjour delegated some party executives to settle the medical bills of a 23-year-old lady admitted to the facility.
The patient, Madam Matilda, had been suffering from an abscess in the neck–a swollen area within body tissue, containing an accumulation of pus–for two weeks but failed to report to the hospital due to financial constraints.
Mr Ayensu lauded the MP for his timely intervention because Madam Matilda’s “neck and cheek were swollen rendering her incapable of eating”.
The beneficiary patient who hails from Assin Beyeeden praised the MP for his kind gesture. She said all efforts to get money to foot the medical bills were an exercise in futility.
Mr Francis Kobbina presented the money to the health centre on behalf of the Rev Ntim Fordjour. He reiterated the legislator’s compassion for the members of the community for which reason he intervened.
“He [Reverend Fordjour] delegated us here to ascertain the seriousness of the situation and we have duly provided him with the feedback for which he has given the sum to be presented to the facility to defray the cost of service for the patient,” he said.
