Accra, June 14, GNA - The Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital on Thursday inaugurated two new buildings to enhance the quality of services offered to patients who patronize the facility.

The new buildings - Endoscopy Unit and Surgical/Medical Emergency Unit were inaugurated by professor Samuel Ofosu-Amaah, Chairman of the Board of the Hospital.

The Endoscopy Unit would treat patients with problems with their internal organs like bleeding and tumours. Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boateng, Chief Executive Officer of the Hospital said the government provided 400,000 pounds for the purchase of the equipment.

He said the hospital was undergoing major rehabilitation to give it a new face to meet the international standards as a teaching hospital. He said the Surgical/Medical Emergency Unit was an extension of the old Unit, which was rehabilitated at a cost of 1.8 billion cedis from the Hospitals Internally Generated Funds. He noted that the new Unit was to reduce the congestion in the old building, which sometimes pushed the hospital to discharge patients pre-maturely due to lack of space and beds.

"This new building, which used to house the accounts department can accommodate as twice as many as before", he added. Prof. Frimpong Boateng explained that the hospital, as a Teaching facility needed major rehabilitation and called on the Ministry of Health and other stakeholders to release funds for the completion of rehabilitation works to improve on services provided. The hospital under the administration of Professor Frimpong Boateng moved six departments into the new Administration block creating more rooms to cater for patients.

Professor Rudolph Darko, Head of Surgery said the Unit attended to 1,000 cases in a year most of which were stomach problems and hoped to attend to more cases with the new machines.

Endoscopy, he explained, allowed physicians to check on the inner parts of the human body for medical reasons and called for an expansion of the unit to house the other areas of Endoscopy, including Urology. Professor Kwame Afram, Head of Medicine commended Management of the Hospital for the face lifting exercise and appealed for more nurses with special skills in intensive care to speed up service delivery. Inaugurating the facilities, Professor Ofosu-Amaah commended Prof. Frimpong Boateng for his innovative ideas and said the face lifting was to raise the hospital to a higher level.

"We have the well-being of our patients at heart and we will continue bringing in new and advanced machines to offer quality health care," he said. 14 June 07