News:
February 11, 2020
Government Assurance Committee of Parliament has had a working day tour to ascertain for themselves facilities at the University of Ghana Medical Center on Friday February 7, 2020.
Ranking member of the Committee Dr. Rashid Pelpuo in his open remarks noted that both the Majority and Minority members of the Committee want to see for themselves every detail of things they have heard about the Hospital.
“We hear the facility is higher than a teaching and tertiary hospital, this shows something is happening in Ghana and we want to be part of it and hope the report would be of interest to parliamentarians, whatever we do, we would share with members”.
Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer of UGMC, Dr. Darius Osei in his presentation gave an overview of how the facility has been operating when members of the Government Assurance Committee touched base with the facility last week Friday.
He told the visiting members of Parliaments Committee that the issue of who owns how much share in the facility had been settled; whiles government owns sixty percent shares, the University of Ghana owns forty percent in the facility.
Dr. Darius further told the Committee members that the website of the Centre would be in full operation 1st of March 2020 and with the completion of the first phase same month this year the facility would kick start.
As Parliament’s approval of a supplementary budget of forty-seven million dollars would start the second and finance phase which should end in March of 2021. The current total staff strength of the facility stands at 350 and by March would jump to 410.
He further revealed that the medical facility is higher than a tertiary and teaching hospital. At the moment there are fifteen specialists on board. The hospital is also said to be going paperless, hence all staffs from different medical facilities who have been hired have been taken through training.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com