The Minister of Health, Hon. Kwaku Agyeman-Manu on Thursday, May 10th, 2018 toured some health facilities in the Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipality to notify himself of the work at various health facilities within the Municipality.

The one-day tour offered the minister and his entourage the opportunity to visit three health facilities which include the Tarkwa Nursing and Midwifery College, Apinto government hospital and the Tarkwa Municipal government hospital respectively.

The Minister was officially welcomed by the first gentleman of the Municipality, Hon Gilbert Ken Asmah, Municipal Chief Executive for Tarkwa-Nsuaem and the Apinto traditional council who led the Minister on his tour.

At the Tarkwa Nursing and Midwifery Training School where he met with Management and staff, traditional authorities and nursing students, the Minister assured them of government’s readiness to improve upon health service delivery in the School to meet international standard.

In the area of facilities expansion, the Health Minister mentioned that he has received proposals from Hon Gilbert Asmah in that regard together with another proposal for the construction of an ultra-modern campus for the Nursing and Midwifery School.

Hon Gilbert Asmah in his submission commended the Minister for selecting Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipality as one of the visiting areas in his tour. The MCE explained that the current location of the Midwifery was previously an eye clinic which lacks space to accommodate the increasing enrollment, he thanked the Minister for accepting to help elevate the School to a higher standard.

The MCE commended the Chiefs for granting the Municipal Assembly acres of land for the new campus project.

The team further moved to the Apinto government hospital where the Health Minister commended the Medical Superintendent and Management for supporting the operations of the facility with their internally generated funds unlike other health facilities where they dwell solely on central government's support to survive.

The Tarkwa-Nsuaem MCE further took the Minister's entourage to the Tarkwa Government hospital, the team were taking on tour by the Medical Superintendent, Dr. Frederick Sarpong who outlined some few challenges to the Minister, however, he was quick to state that the facility has still not been officially commissioned and that most of the facilities inherited were not in good condition, here too, the Minister used the occasion to interact with management and staff of the hospital well.

The tour provided the Minister and officers from the Ministry of Health and the Regional Health Directorate to have first-hand information about the operations, activities, achievements and challenges confronting the facility.

He reiterated his Ministry's readiness and commitment to addressing the needs of the three facilities visited and further promised to elevate the working condition of the health workers in the country.

Touching on challenges being faced by the facilities, most of which cut across almost all of them included infrastructure, tools, equipment, inadequate critical staff, vehicles, accommodation and lack of incubators. The minister assured that his ministry and for that matter, the NPP government led by H.E Nana-Akufo Addo would see to it that, challenges facing them are addressed as and when funds and logistics become available.

The Minister of Health, Hon. Kwaku Agyeman-Manu assured of government’s intention to ensure early completion of the proposed new Nursing Midwifery School by Hon Gilbert Ken Asmah and his team and other uncompleted health-related projects. He thanked the management of the hospitals for maintaining high standards at their facilities and urged others to emulate them.

The minister was accompanied on the tour by the Public Relations Officer at the Ministry, the Regional Director of Ghana Health Service, Directors at the Ministry, Officers from the Ministry of health, Kwame Sarfo, an Architech with Capital Investment Unit, Barnabas Yeboah, National CHPS compound Coordinator and the Special Assistant to the minister.