The Lawra Municipal Hospital, a 98-year-old facility in the Upper West Region, is battling severe infrastructural decay, with medical staff recently forced to conduct emergency sur
The report indicates that the Lawra Municipal Hospital, a 98-year-old facility in the Upper West Region, is battling severe infrastructural decay, with medical staff recently forced to conduct emergency surgeries amid invading insects and deliver babies in wards with leaking roofs.
It further notes that established in 1928, the historic hospital has undergone no major renovations since its inception. A financial crisis, driven by low Out-Patient Department (OPD) attendance and mounting legacy debts, has left the facility struggling to procure basic medical consumables. However, targeted interventions by the Member of Parliament for the Lawra Constituency, Bede Anwataazumo Ziedeng, are offering a glimmer of hope to the overstretched medical staff.
Before the MP’s recent intervention to refurbish the hospital’s operating theatre, the surgical team faced a terrifying reality.
Mohammed Muslim, a nurse and deputy in charge of the theatre, stated that the facility previously relied on wooden doors and louvre windows, which failed to keep the theatre airtight.
“Sometimes, especially during the night, when you are on duty, you could see insects, even crickets, enter the main theatre,” Muslim recalled.
He noted the serious risk this posed to patients, warning that if an insect found its way into a patient’s open abdomen during surgery, it could cause life-threatening infections.
Following a passionate appeal by the hospital management, the MP replaced the wooden doors and louvre windows with airtight doors and windows and has yet to install new air conditioners.
“Once all those things are changed, we don’t experience those things again,” Muslim added with relief.
While the theatre has seen significant improvements, the maternity and gynaecology wards remain in a deplorable state, turning the rainy season into a nightmare for expectant mothers.
Aysha Goodman, Deputy Chief Midwifery Officer for Public Health, indicated that the roof of the gynaecology ward leaks heavily, allowing rainwater to pour directly onto patients’ beds.
“Anytime it’s raining, the clients cannot lie on their bed; they have to shift and pair with other clients,” Madam Goodman lamented.
She stated the poor conditions are forcing some pregnant women who require admission to seek care elsewhere.
The infrastructural challenges in the maternity ward are compounded by a shortage of essential logistics, including bedsheets, mattresses and an ultrasound machine. In emergencies, nurses are often forced to wheel pregnant women to another part of the hospital, or even outside the facility, to undergo ultrasound scans before they can be taken into theatre.
“And then some of the… like scan machines for our clients. At times, when a pregnant woman comes here, we need to do scan before going to theatre. We have to push the person to the other side, or outside the hospital for scan. So that one too is our challenge in this hospital.”
