Central University (CU) has cut the sod for a teaching hospital project as part of efforts to internalize practical training on the university’s campus.

The project, valued at five million Ghana Cedis, will also offer quality healthcare to the residents of the Ningo-Prampram District and its environs.

In a speech before the groundbreaking and tree planting exercise on Monday at the CU premises, Miotso, the Vice-Chancellor (VC) of the university, Professor Bill Buener Puplampu, observed that the construction of a hospital on the university campus was a historic achievement as it was another milestone in the advancement of private education in Ghana.

“It is historic for many reasons; Central University blazes the trail for science education in the private sector. At the time it was done, some said it was impossible,” Professor Puplampu informed.

The VC said since then, there had always been the drive to provide a facility for the allied science students to have “direct on-campus access to training. The vision is that with this structure, we shall enhance our teaching and learning process.”

The Chancellor of the CU, Dr. Mensa Otabil, said the sod-cutting was for the first phase which would lead to a clinic, culminating in a full-fledged hospital and then to a teaching hospital.

Dr. Otabil observed that it was great to build big facilities, “but without management capacities, it becomes a liability, and so we thought of building something we could manage excellently and grow with it.”

The Chancellor hoped that it would be a centre of excellence for health delivery, adding that “health delivery is not about the size of buildings, but about the skills and protocols that are set up by the health practitioners that are adhered to religiously. And these are some of the things we hope to establish here at the hospital.”

Dr. Otabil hoped that the hospital, when completed, would be a major stopping point especially in health emergencies for people who were trying to go to the Tema General Hospital “but have to drive all the way from Ada or some of these areas and that there would be a stop here for proper care to be given to them.”

The facility is a 38-bed-scalable clinic with International Central Gospel Church (ICGC) support and funding. The facility is made up of an Out-Patients Department (OPD), offices, lecture halls, case rooms for reviews, theatre, ultrasounds, X-ray department, among others.