The Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, has, through SOS International in the United States of America, donated hospital equipment worth US$1.2million to the Mepe Health Centre.
The Centre, which was constructed by the Ghana Chamber of Science through the Citi FM Foundation, following the floods that submerged some communities in the North Tongu district as a result of the spillage of the Akosombo and Kpong Dams, lacked medical equipment.
The lawmaker, on his birthday Sunday, August 11, 2024, donated the items to the facility to help the healthcare delivery for the people.
He also disclosed that plans are far advanced to expand the facility into a fully fledged hospital to benefit the entire Mepe Traditional Area. With some of the equipment being tertiary machines, he noted that such would be utilised after the Centre has been upgraded into a hospital.
“The hospital is not complete without medical equipment. So at the commissioning, I promised them that I will make sure these equipment are provided so that the hospital will be fully operational. I spoke to my partners in the United States of America called SOS International, and they have sent me this medical equipment valued at $1.2 million. And you can see that these equipment is even higher.
“Some of them are for tertiary facilities, like the dialysis machines, then you have surgical machines, you have infant incubators, optoclips, you have ultrasounds and all of that. But the vision is that we are going to expand this so that it will move from a health center to a hospital, a fully equipped modern hospital. And we are going to start that expansion in the next few weeks,” he disclosed.
“So we’ll start using the equipment that are needed now. And then when we have expanded and we get the upgrade certification, then we’ll also be ready, we have our equipment already,” he added.
Mr. Ablakwa expressed excitement over the fact that the facility will “become a fully fledged modern hospital to take care of the entire Mepe Traditional Area and the catchment area, all the way to Dove, Mapi areas. We don’t have a health facility that is befitting of the status of this community. And I’m very, very happy that we have been able to achieve this.”