The Management of the Sabronum Health Centre and residents close to the facility want government to begin the construction work on a polyclinic earmarked for construction in the area.

The Minister of Health Kwaku Agyeman-Manu cut sod for the project in 2020.

Inhabitants within Sabronum and its surrounding communities have over the years complained about a number of healthcare challenges they face.

The Sabronum health centre which serves over 20,000 residents according to the residents lacks basic tools and the enabling environment to ensure the provision of quality healthcare.

The residents heaved a sigh of relief when the Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu last year cut sod for the polyclinic project to commence as their health centre was going to be upgraded.

Despite the funfair, no significant development has taken place as weeds have grown in the area with no sign of actual work beginning anytime soon.

As the management of the Sabronum health centre and residents are worried about the situation, the challenges keep getting worse each day.

According to the management, one major challenge they face is congestion as the population in the area keeps growing.

With the increasing number of patients, however, there has not been a corresponding increase in the health workers deployed to the centre.

This according to the residents is leading to pressure on the few health workers at the facility as patients are not attended to early enough and are made to wait for hours.

Speaking to Citi News, the Deputy Sub-District in charge, at Sabronum in the Ahafo Ano South East District, Frank Osei Owusu called on government to consider the needs of the facility as a priority.

“The Health Minister was here on September 4th last year to cut the sod for the commencement of the project. The contractor also came here in February this year and promised us that in the middle of March 2021, they will come and start, but currently, we have not seen anything yet. So we are also pleading on behalf of the right authorities to see to it that construction work begins. People around Sabronum also need to benefit from the national cake. When the project is being done, the stakeholders are going to bring in more staff from other fields to come and help to take care of our populace. Currently, we are in dire need of health workers.”

“As I said, we have only ten nurses of all categories- community health nurses, enrolled nurses, staff and then if I should add even midwives to it, you see we are serving more than twenty thousand people, and we have only three midwives and out of the three, one is on maternity leave, one is pregnant. So it is a big challenge to us as a sub-district”.

Another major concern the management wants to be addressed is the issue of back up power supply as most activities come to a halt whenever there is a power outage.

“Currently we’ve been facing the problem of power outages which I think is a general challenge. When the power is out, there is no alternative for power supply in our facility. If stakeholders can also come in and help with a plant so that when there is no light, we can fall on that plant, we would be very grateful. Because when there is a case at night, for instance, a labour case or an emergency case at the OPD, we have to use the torchlight on our phones and our phone battery may also be running down, and so we won’t be able to attend to the patients. Yesterday, for instance, we had to refer somebody not because we cannot treat the person but because there was no light”.

Some residents who have been at the receiving end of the numerous challenges facing the facility have also been speaking to Citi News.

“There are not enough health workers here. Also, this place is not spacious especially the maternity unit. Government has to ensure that we get a bigger facility. Due to the intermittent power supply situation, nurses here face various challenges. Only one health worker is taking care of all of us visiting the maternity unit. There should be more health workers here. We came here very early, but we have still not been attended to,” a pregnant woman, Ama Pomaa lamented.

“We are facing a number of challenges. Key amongst them is the electricity situation. Since there is no backup power supply, whenever there is a power outage, we would have to use torchlights. Authorities have to intervene to get a backup,” an inhabitant, Jibril Salam stated.

“After the sod cutting, nothing has been done here. We want authorities to ensure that work begins on that project,” another resident, Kaarim Haruna stated.

Source: citifmonline