The First Lady, Lordina Dramani Mahama, has commissioned a fully renovated and well-equipped Anyima Health Centre in the Kintampo South District of the Bono East Region to improve access to quality healthcare in the area.
Speaking at the ceremony, Mrs. Mahama said the project was undertaken by the Lordina Foundation following advocacy by the Anyima Queenmother, Nana Saa Gyamfuaa II.
“It gives me great pleasure to be here today to officially commission this fully renovated and well-equipped Anyima Health Centre,” she said.
Mrs. Mahama explained that the commissioning brings to six the number of health facilities the foundation has either built or renovated across the country.
“These include four new maternity and children’s wards at Bole, Nkoranza South, Bodom in Nkoranza North and more recently at Asukawkaw,” she stated, adding that the foundation also renovated and expanded the Adabraka Health Centre at Hohoe Zongo and provided essential medical equipment.
According to her, the Anyima project holds personal significance because of her family connection to the area.
“Today’s commissioning of the Anyima Health Centre holds a special place in my heart because it is in my home area. Jema-Ampoma, which is nearby, is where my late mother, Abena Gyamfua, comes from,” she said.
Mrs. Mahama stressed that the foundation’s work is aimed at improving maternal and infant healthcare across the country.
“Every Ghanaian community deserves access to quality healthcare, especially for maternal and infant health,” she said.
She expressed concern over Ghana’s maternal and infant mortality rates, describing the figures as disturbing.
“Ghana’s maternal mortality rate is nearly 300 deaths per 100,000 live births, while infant mortality is about 32 deaths per 1,000 live births,” she noted.
She added that many of these deaths are preventable.
“Behind these numbers are mothers, daughters, sisters and precious children whose lives could be saved with timely access to quality healthcare facilities and skilled birth attendants,” she said.
Mrs. Mahama said the renovated facility will serve more than 3,000 residents in Anyima and surrounding communities including Amoma, Apesika, Jema and Kranbenko.
The upgraded health centre now includes an Out-Patient Department, consulting and examination rooms, a delivery room, labour ward, children’s ward, male and female wards, an adolescent centre, laboratory, dispensary, emergency room and offices for nurses and midwives.
The facility has also been equipped with modern medical equipment such as hospital beds and mattresses, examination beds, an electric obstetric bed, an infant incubator, infant phototherapy unit, ultrasound system, digital electrocardiogram (ECG) machine, oxygen equipment and neonatal care devices.
“These buildings the Lordina Foundation is constructing are not merely structures. They are life-savers,” she said.
Mrs. Mahama noted that the project would help reduce the need for pregnant women and the sick to travel long distances to access healthcare.
She also announced that the President, John Dramani Mahama, will soon launch a Primary Health Care Programme to provide free healthcare services at facilities such as the Anyima Health Centre.
“The programme will increase healthcare utilisation, promote early disease detection and reduce health expenditure for families,” she said.
Mrs. Mahama urged health workers to serve patients with dignity and compassion and called on the community to take proper care of the facility.
“I now have the singular honour to declare the Anyima Health Centre officially commissioned and open for service to the people,” she stated.
