WENCHI METHODIST HOSPITAL

 

(THE  METHODIST CHURCH - GHANA)

BANKERS:

Ghana Commercial Bank, Wenchi.

Barclays Bank, Ghana Ltd.

 

Your Ref:

 

Our Ref:

 

 

E-Mail: methowen@africaonline.com.gh

Post Office Box 55

Wenchi - B/A

Ghana

 

 

12-05-05

 

Tel: 0652 -22227 / 22012

METHODIST HOSPITAL -WENCHI

1. INTRODUCTION

The Wenchi Methodist Hospital was established in 1952 by the chiefs and people of Wenchi under the auspices of the then Irish Superintendent Minister of the Methodist Church by name Rev. John Dixon. It started as a Dressing Station in a small room at the current location of the Police Station. The people were dissatisfied with the situation where their sick had to be sent to Sunyani for medical attention. Their strong desire for a hospital made them quickly agree to convert a block of the Methodist School into a ward to facilitate the birth of the hospital

 

Wenchi, where the Hospital is sited, is the district headquarters of the Wenchi District, one of the biggest districts in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana. The district has a surface area of 2942 square kilometers and accommodates a population of about 183,940

 

The Wenchi District is bordered on the north by the Black Volta, and on the south by the Sunyani and Berekum districts. It also shares boundaries with Kintampo and Techiman districts in the east and the Jaman district and La Cote D’ivoire in the west.

 

In the main the people of the district are small-scale farmers, their main produce being maize, yam, cassava, beans and tomatoes. Charcoal burning is done on a large scale mainly by the immigrant Sissala tribesmen from the north.

 

The road network in the district is not well developed. The Techiman – Wenchi – Bamboi and the Wenchi – Sunyani roads are the only tarred parts of the road network. The Wenchi – Nsawkaw road has just been tarred. The rest of the network is not tarred but dusty. Some parts of the road network are not motorable in the rainy season.

 

In addition to the district capital, 8 small towns and villages are connected to the national grid for electricity supply.

 

Wenchi is connected to the national telecommunication network and enjoys the services of many communication centers besides the services rendered by Ghana Telecom which, in addition to its landline services, operates mobile phone services. Wenchi also enjoys mobile phone services rendered by Space Phone. Some of the small towns have communication centers to facilitate communication with the outside world.

 

There are 19 health facilities in the district. The government owns fourteen of these while one is mission run and the remaining 6 are private self-financing.

The Wenchi Hospital is a referral center to the 18 other health facilities made up of clinics, Health Centres, Health Posts, etc. Some Traditional Birth Attandants (TBA) refer cases to the Hospital. Health Posts in the southern part of the Northern Region refer cases to the Hospital. The Hospital, on the other hand refers cases to the Regional Hospital in Sunyani a distance of about eighty (80) kilometers.

 

 

The Wenchi Methodist Hospital with a bed complement of 100 is a district referral hospital with the following departments or units:

 

  1. Out-patient facilities comprising (Out Patient Department)
  2. In-patient facilities comprising

 

The Hospital has the following support services:

There is a mortuary which offers efficient cold storage facilities for dead bodies for preservation and post-mortems.

 

The Outpatient Attendance to the Hospital for last year was 33,592 from the figure of 29,934 in 2003.It is significant to observe that over the past years the clients/patients attendances have seen a steady rise each year, which shows a growing confidence in our services

 

The total staff strength of staff at the hospital is 145, made up of 91 mechanized unto the Government payroll 33 non-mechanized (paid locally by the institution) and 21 seconded from the Ghana Health Services. There are at the moment only one Ghanaian medical doctor and two two Cuban doctors, one of whom is a Gynaecologist and the other a General Practitioner. There is however no surgeon at post and that is depriving the hospital of a reasonable amount of financial resources

 

The Management Board is a policy making body for the Hospital. The Board meets quarterly to                           

 review the work of the Hospital and to formulate broad policies for implementation through the Hospital Management Team.        

 

The Hospital Management Team (HMT) is responsible for the day-to-day running of the institution. It is    

 responsible for the implementation of Board decisions and policies. The HMT reports to the Board.

The Team meets monthly to review activities of the various units and makes decisions for the way      

 forward.      

 

 The In-charges of the various departments in the Hospital form the heads of departments team which           

  meets before and input into HMT meetings. Departmental information sharing is done at these meetings    

  and where any department has any problem they bring them up for collective solutions.

 

 Major Challenges facing the Hospital

 

1. Currently, we have an imbalance ratio of trained (Professional) nurses to untrained (Ward Assistants), which is 60:40 which does not augur well for the desired level of quality care that we want to give to our clients /patients.

In pursuit of this we have a plan to train five (5) nurses over the next three years and the budget for it is the equivalent of seven thousand and sixty pounds (£7060 app.) given that the exchage of the Pound to our local currency the Cedi is 1: 17000. It is important to explain that it costs us the equivalent of £462 to sponsor one nurse in a year.

 

2. The other major area of concern is the provision of simple but decent accommodation for the Nurses those who already on the job, as well as the other Professionals (Medical Laboratory, Radiology) including a bungalow for a third medical doctor.

 

Infact we need to construct ten (10) number of Duplex houses, each of which can take two familes in the next three years to be able to retain those nurses on the ground and also take on new ones.

Each apartment of the Duplex shall have two bedrooms, a hall and the utilities. The construction of each duplex is to cost us the equivalent of Ten thousand Pounds (£10,000) at current market prices.

 

3. The envisaged bungalow for a third Medical doctor, whom we expect to be a specialist in surgery, will cost us the equivalent of Eleven thousand and eight hundred Pounds (£11,800). The difference in the construction cost is because the bungalow will have three bedrooms, a living room, the utilities, a garage and furnished.

 

4. We would need a surgeon to lift the image of the hospital to much greater heights and to be able to carve a good image for itself in such a specialty. For now we are losing all major surgical procedures to our closest competitor in the industry sited twenty –four (24) kilometers away. Could it be possible to get an experienced person to come for a period of between two-three years short service as the Cuban Medical Brigade has been doing in Ghana for sometime now.

 

5. The other major project that also needs consideration is the reconstruction of the Hospital Outpatient Department (OPD) building. The plan is to put up a one storey block .The ground floor will house the patients/clients waiting hall (with about 150 capacity), five consulting rooms, accident and emergency unit, Pharmacy and store etc. The first floor will have permanent offices for the Administrator and all the Key Management members and a Board room.

 

The project estimate which was drawn last year was to cost us the equivalent of One hundred and twenty four thousand pounds (£124,000). We have since then received support and pledges from our government and the Irish Methodist WDRC (Ireland) totalling the eqivalent of (£43,000). The search is now for the balance of (£81,000).

 

6. In case you may also want to assist with equipment, then our number one priority is an Ultra-Sound machine, an Incubator and sets of delivery instrument for the Maternity Ward.

 

We have covered wide areas to allow you and your team members have the flexibility to choose the areas you can conveniently support.

In our quest to rebuild our dear hospital here at Wenchi in Ghana, no support will be counted as small, since the construction of any giant edifice begins with the laying of a single block.

 

For purposes of transfer of Funds for any of the projects, the hospital operates a US Dollar Account with Barclays Bank Ltd, High Street –Accra. A/c No. 064-1404365. Any time you tranfer money, please let us know quickly so as to be able to follow up.

 

You can also notify the Conference Office at Wesley House in Accra about any tranfer to the hospital.

 

We await your responses soon.

 

Compiled by

 

B C K Botwe

Hospital Administrator.