Vice President Kwesi Amissah-Arthur’s campaign tour of the Ashanti region to woo voters for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), suffered a serious setback on Thursday morning when he visited the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH.)

Some agitated-looking nursing training students, numbering about 100, welcomed the Veep to the hospital with a hurriedly arranged massive demonstration which hit Mr. Arthur and his aides hard.

The student nurses, in one accord, shouted on top of their voices that “the government should do something about our unpaid arrears and also donate some of the government’s free distributed laptops to us.”

They bemoaned over the government’s seeming neglect of their concerns, especially their welfare, threatening to hit the streets in large numbers soon if the government continued neglecting them.

Mr. Amissah Arthur was at the hospital to inaugurate a newly constructed Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Centre at the facility and also inspect other ongoing projects.

The unexpected demonstration of the student nurses seemed to have come as a great surprise to the Veep. For a moment he stood idle not knowing what to do about the impromptu agitation of the student nurses.

The beauty of the programme, which ideally was supposed to provide fanfare and merrymaking for the attendants, temporarily seemed to have been defeated, with the student nurses going on rampage.

After the visibly-shaken Veep regained his confidence, he urged the irate-looking demonstrators to exercise patience for a while as government was ready to address their concerns.

Mr. Amissah-Arthur continued that the NDC government has the vision of making quality healthcare accessible to all Ghanaians, mentioning the opening of the MRI centre at KATH as one of the government’s interventions in the health sector.

The colourful ceremony was attended by bigwigs at KATH, including the CEO of the hospital, Prof Ohene Agyei and other representatives from all the directorates and nurses of KATH.

Mr. Arthur also inspected the ongoing Maternity and Children’s Block project at the hospital started in the early 1970s and the Eye Centre which was nearing completion.

Dr. Mrs. Augustina Badu-Peprah, Head of Radiology Department and Diagnostic Directorate, said the MRI centre started two years ago, adding the facility boasts of equipment like 128 Slice CT Scan and 1.5 Tesla MRI.

He said the MRI centre would contribute significantly to the diagnosing of diseases among children, pregnant women and the spine of human beings devoid of radiation, noting the facility would be accessed by people in the Ashanti Region and beyond.