Ghana's first paracyclist and Africa’s C2 paracyclist, Alem Mumuni, is calling on the authorities and Ghanaians in general to intervene in building the abandoned district hospital in his district, Garu Tempane.
As one of the six proposed district hospital projects across the country initiated early this year in the district, Garu Tempane Hospital has been abandoned and this is a source of concern to all the residents of the district, including Mumuni.
In fact, the Garu Tempane district hospital is and would be the only hospital among seven to be built in the three northern regions – Northern, Upper West and Upper East.
According to Mumuni, “when my people heard of and saw equipment being brought to the site about a year ago and the upper soil being prepared for work to begin, they heaved a sigh of relief hoping that the death of innocent pregnant women and other preventable deaths were going to be a thing of the past, but it turned out to be a fiasco.”
He expressed surprise at the fact that there was nothing on the ground when he visited the site recently.
“I paid a visit to my district on Friday, November 4, 2016, and made a tour to the said site but could not see anything, not even pieces of equipment that were brought to be used.”
He expressed worry that the people could not express their anger and disappointment at the halt in the project, for fear of being seen as members of an opposition political party.
“Lots of pregnant women die during labour due to no access to an equipped hospital except the one in Bawku, which is 23 kilometres away from Garu. The road is so bad that before a patient or pregnant woman gets to Bawku they might die.”
He said patients with emergency cases could be saved from dying if they get access to a good hospital, regretting that the Presbyterian Church hospital in the district does not have the requisite facilities such that it does not even have beds to admit patients.
Making a case for the resumption of work and completion of the hospital, Mumuni, who represented Ghana at the recent Paralympic Games in Rio, Brazil, said “it would create employment, prevent deaths, especially among pregnant women, and bring vibrant young doctors to the district.”
He appealed to the leadership of the country to consider the plight of the people of Garu and come over to build the hospital to save them from preventable deaths.
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