The building originally earmarked as Central Out-Patient Department of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital will now be turned into Surgical Medical Emergency Unit, an official has told TV3.

This is to reduce congestion and control pressure at the Central Surgical Medical Emergency Unit.

It is expected to cater for 80 patients at a time.

These were made known to TV3 by the Hospital’s Public Relations Officer Mustapha Salifu.

“The new emergency is adjacent to the accident center so we [will] now have the opportunity of using common resources that they both have,” he said on Wednesday.

Mr Salifu noted that work on the new unit began last year and scheduled to be completed at the end of 2015.

“It will give us the opportunity to accept more emergency cases that are referred to the hospital.”

The new unit will have a pharmacy, mortuary and an intensive care unit to ease congestion at the main hospital facility.

Congestion at the Hospital’s Surgical Medical Emergency Unit recently forced patients to seek medical care at near-by hospitals including Ridge Hospital and 37 Military Hospital.