President John Dramani Mahama has given an assurance that the La General Hospital project will be completed and commissioned by November 2027.
The President gave the assurance during a visit to the hospital site yesterday to apprise himself of ongoing works.
He was accompanied by the Minister of Health, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh.
Completion
President Mahama, after being taken round to inspect the project, commended the contractor for the progress made so far.
“The hospital is progressing quite well, and we want to make sure that it doesn’t stall, and that it continues and is delivered on the due date.
“The contractor assures us that by November 2027, we should be able to commission this hospital.
As the minister said, this hospital is important because, since its demolition, all the patients who used to come here now go to either the Ridge Hospital, Lekma or Korle Bu.
It is important that we get this hospital back in a better shape to provide an additional 160 beds,” President Mahama stated.
He further noted that people complained about emergencies, which were worsened by insufficient beds, saying that this hospital is adding 160 more beds.
“We will do everything possible to make sure that we complete this project so that we can afford good quality health care for our people,” he said.
President Mahama said in the meantime, the executive had discussed with the minister about how to address the issue of emergency hospital beds for accident victims and people with severe conditions.
“Most of the time, at night, finding a place for them to be treated has been difficult.
So, the emergency centre, which was built at Burma Camp during the COVID period, is going to be repurposed to have beds for handling only emergencies,” he said.
“If there is an emergency and a person is not accepted at any of these hospitals, the emergency centre at Burma Camp will come to his or her rescue,” the President stated.
He explained that emergency nurses and doctors will be there to stabilise the patient, after which the patient can be moved to a regular hospital.
He said the ministry was taking this action to prevent needless deaths due to the “‘no-bed” syndrome.
Police Hospital
In a related development, the President announced the termination of the contract for the Police Hospital project.
“We have terminated the contract on the police hospital.
We are going to re-award it so that we can finish it quickly and then create more bed space,” he said.
Primary healthcare
President Mahama also recalled that two weeks ago, the government launched the primary healthcare programme, which he described as very important, as it would prevent people from visiting the hospital or getting hospitalised.
“This is because it has a preventive aspect, where people are educated on how to look after their health, and do not always have to visit the hospital when they need a cure.
They say prevention is better than cure,” he said.
“The primary healthcare will check your blood pressure, sugar level, provide free breast cancer screening and others to enable us to detect diseases at an early stage.
With that, you would not need to be hospitalised, thereby easing the current pressure on our health workers and health facilities,” President Mahama added.
Money paid
Meanwhile, Mr Akandoh disclosed that the government paid an amount of GH¢60 million in late 2025 towards the La General Hospital reconstruction project.
He explained that the payment was part of efforts to keep the project on track for the November 2027 deadline.
Source:
www.graphic.com.gh