By Isaac Arkoh
Cape Coast, June 16, GNA – The Vivat Turkson Foundation (VTF) has cut the sod for a first-of-its-kind paediatric oncology facility at the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital (CCTH).
The VTF says the unit would expand access to childcentred cancer care in the Central Region and beyond.
The 30‑bed, two‑storey container structure had been designed around the specific needs of children with cancer to provide age‑appropriate treatment and recovery spaces.
Scheduled for completion in six months, the facility will include a daycare unit, in‑patient ward, pharmacy and a high‑dependency unit for patients requiring closer monitoring.
With support from multi-donors, the facility is being built by Nest Reality Real Estate Developer, a renowned real estate company bringing diversity to the building industry with unique, fresh and stylishly modern container buildings for health centres across the country.
Upon completion, it is expected to reduce logistical, financial and emotional burdens on families who now travel long distances from the Western, Western North and parts of the Ashanti regions to access paediatric oncology services at CCTH.
Significantly, it would ease the current practice of caregivers sleeping in hospital corridors and of young cancer patients recovering in wards shared with children receiving treatment for other medical conditions that needed separation due to easy infections.
At a brief ceremony prior to the sod cutting ceremony, Mrs Jane Williams Turkson, the Founder of the Foundation, said she was inspired after the loss of her daughter to Wilms’ tumor, the most common type of kidney cancer in children.
According to her, the daughter died after months of stressfully shuttling her between the CCTH and Korle-bu Teaching Hospital, hence the establishment of the centre, and a foundation to raise awareness of childhood cancers and provide support for families battling such conditions.
She said dedicated paediatric oncology infrastructure in Ghana remained limited despite the growing burden of childhood cancers.
Without age-appropriate facilities, she noted, children would undergo treatment in environments that compounded physical and psychological trauma for both patients and their families.
With the assistance of Dr Emmanuella Amoako, the Paediatric Oncologist at CCTH and other partners, she said the facility would not be just an infrastructure, but a statement that every child in Ghana deserved care built around them.
She rallied unalloyed support from all to ensure timely completion of the project by donating to the account name, Viva Turkson Foundation through MTN Momo: 0246373464.
Dr Eric Kofi Ngyedu, the Chief Executive Officer of the CCTH, hailed the move as a transformative milestone that would save lives, keep families together and bring child cancer care closer to where children in the Central Region live, eliminating up to 9-hour travels to or from Accra or Kumasi.
He said the facility would help reduce delayed treatment, financial hardship and treatment abandonment while strengthening the hospital’s capacity to provide early detection and quality oncology services for children.
The initiative, he indicated, directly fulfilled CCTH’s mandate as a major teaching hospital to spearhead life-saving healthcare, quality delivery services to its clients, and train doctors and medical staff while reducing the burden on Korle-Bu and Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospitals.
Cutting the sod, Osabarima Kwesi Atta II, Omanhen (Paramount Chief) of Oguaa Traditional Area, rallied support for a facility, emphasising the urgent need to give children fighting cancer, access to specialised care close to home.
He urged chiefs, government, non-government organisations and the public to unite behind the project, reminding everyone that cancer does not discriminate by person, location or social status.
GNA
Edited by Alice Tettey/Benjamin Mensah
Reporter: Isaac Arkoh
Reporter email: [email protected]