Medical Station reconstructed at 66th Artillery Regiment(inside page)

Story: Michael Donkor, Ho
THE Medical Station of the 66th Artillery Regiment in Ho has been reconstructed at a cost of €187,257.
Apart from providing readily accessible health care for the soldiers, their spouses and the civilian employees of the regiment, the station is also expected to further deepen civil-military relations in the Ho municipality and the Volta Region as a whole.
The reconstruction was carried out by the government, with support from the government of Germany.
The station will be open to all in the Ho municipality in an effort to accelerate the delivery of medical care to the people of the area in the bid to promote good relations with the civilian population.
The Minister of Defence, Mr Albert Kan-Dapaah, said the station was reconstructed with the initiative of the German government, under the supervision of the German Military Advisory Team in Ghana.
New facilities have been added to the station, including a new theatre with fully installed equipment, a new dental unit, a fully equipped X-ray unit, as well as an electro-cardiogram (ECG) unit.
Other facilities are a fully equipped laboratory, the renovation of the admission wards and toilets, as well as the provision of a medical store and a dispensary.
According to Mr Kan-Dapaah, the second phase of the project, scheduled to start soon, will include the rehabilitation of the maternity blocks, the medical officer's residence, the principal nursing officer's quarters and a 14-unit nurses' transit quarters.
He announced that the Ministry of Defence had plans to relocate the Ghana Armed Forces Recruit Training School to the Akoefe Barracks near Ho, adding that the medical station would serve as the main hospital for the school.
The German Military Advisory Team, he said, had already trained personnel to man all the new equipment and facilities installed at the station.
Mr Kan-Dapaah expressed gratitude to the German team, under the command of Lt Col Kunz, for the effort put into the reconstruction of the station in a relatively short period of five months.
He catalogued a number of projects undertaken for the GAF through the support of the German government and added that those efforts would further improve the good relations that existed between Ghana and Germany.
For his part, the German Ambassador to Ghana, Dr Marius Haas, praised the excellent state of relations between Germany and Ghana, adding that the Government of Germany had so far expended €2 million on projects in Ghana.
He pledged that the Military advisory team in Ghana would remain unchanged and co-operate with the GAF to enhance relations between the two countries.
Dr Haas said the completion of the station would curtail the situation where personnel in need of critical medical attention had to be rushed to the 37 Military Hospital in Accra.
According to him, a good medical facility for servicemen when they returned from operations abroad would serve as a great morale booster, saying that the medical needs of troops had been underestimated in the past, a situation he described as unfortunate.
The Commanding Officer of the 66th Artillery Regiment, Lt Col Kotia, expressed the hope that as part of the second phase the German Government would assist with the provision of ophthalmologist equipment and also equip a room for a physiotherapy department to raise the status of the station to a full hospital.
"The upgraded medical station will go a long way to further enhance the desire of the regiment to promote civil-military relations in the Ho municipality and the region as a whole," he added.