Kumasi, Dec.18, GNA – The Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) in Kumasi has taken delivery of four new ventilators from the University Hospital of Munich, Germany.
The devices, worth €100,000, are to be used to treat patients who are ill with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), Coronavirus and others, who suffer other serious ailments that need intensive medical care.
The donation was to strengthen the partnership between the two hospitals, which had existed since 2017, under the Hospital Partnerships Programme of the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ).
Professor Matthias Richter-Turtur, General Orthopaedic Thoracic Surgeon of the University Hospital of Munich, led the team to present the items.
He said through the partnership some health professionals at KATH such as intensive care physicians, anaesthetics, surgeons, hospital hygienists, virologists and microbiologists had been supported with training.
The GIZ Hospitals Partnership Programme supports projects between German institutions and those from low-and-middle-income countries in the medical and health sector, focusing on capacity development for health staff.
It has been supporting 12 projects in Ghana since 2016.
Prof Richter-Turtur expressed satisfaction with the relationship between the Ghanaian-German medical cooperation.
“Being active in the Ghanaian-German medical cooperation for 36 years, I am very glad to see the continuous growth of our activities in spite of the coronavirus, the personal contacts of many young active hospital members within the hospital partnership of Munich and Kumasi and other places”.
Dr Oheneba Owusu-Danso, Chief Executive Officer of KATH, who received the equipment on behalf of the hospital, said the partnership with the colleagues from Munich had grown enormously and expressed the hope it would continue to render essential medical assistance to Ghanaians.
He said although the hospital was now recording fewer numbers of covid-19 cases, the ventilators were very useful in health care delivery
He believed the equipment would go a long way to upgrade and improve the facilities, especially at the intensive care and high dependency care areas so that critical patients could have the best of care.
Dr Owusu-Danso commended the organizations, especially Prof Richter-Turtur, for continually leveraging for assistance in equipment and training for the KATH.
GNA