Ahaji Alhassan Suleman, the Upper West Regional Minister, has said the 160-bed capacity new regional Hospital in Wa is 90 percent complete and will be handed over in September 2018.

The new health facility located along the Wa-Kaleo road, has 700-metre covered walkway, four operation rooms for various surgeries is expected to be commissioned in October 2018 and start full operations by January 2019, according to the Minister.

The ultra-modern hospital also has mini market, physiotherapy unit, two buildings for administration, pharmacy and parking lot for 114 vehicles among others facilities and several sophisticated equipment.

Responding to a question by GNA about the status of the new facility during regional heads of department meeting in Wa Tuesday, Ahaji Suleman said: “Work on the Hospital is 90 per cent complete; we are hoping that it will be handed over in September and commissioned in October.”

“But after commissioning, there will be a fallow period of three months to train personnel on how to use some of the equipment, I understand they very sophisticated,” he added.

“Ideally,” he added, the hospital would be ready for delivery of healthcare services in January 2019.

Euroget De-Invest, an Egyptian company, is the main contractor with CNQC of China being sub-contractors for the project initially planned to complete in February 2017.

Mr Abu Kansangbata, the acting Executive Director of Savannah Development, told the GNA in April that the old hospital had one of the worse doctor-patient ratios of one doctor to over 500 patients.

He also said the policy think tank investigation showed the old hospital lacked equipment like CT Scan, X-Ray machine, computers, and other machines for clinical laboratory investigations.

Residents of the region would heave a sigh of relief when the new hospital is opened for health service delivery to the public.