By Inusa Musah
The Tema Metropolitan Assembly (TMA) has moved to improve on quality health delivery at U-Compound, a suburb of Tema Newtown, with the opening of a new Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) Compound last Friday at a brief ceremony.
Construction of the health facility begun in April this year, and Ark Construction Limited kept to its promise of completing the work on schedule – within six months. Construction of the Tema Newtown U-Compound CHPS Compound cost the TMA GH¢101,000, and the facility forms part of the Assembly’s target of constructing 16 of such facilities in all the electoral areas in the metropolis, in order to get health care closer to the people, particularly, in densely populated areas.
Elated by the scheduled completion of the facility, the Tema Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE), Isaac Ashai Odamtten, said the assembly is hopeful of hitting more than 50 percent of its target of putting up 16 CHPS Compounds in all the electoral areas.
He, furthermore, expressed happiness at the proximity of all ongoing construction of CHPS compounds to densely populated schools, and he was glad the Tema Newtown one is situated at a better location for accessibility. Tema, and for that matter Ghana, he said, needs long term infrastructural projects that would benefit generations, hence the reason the assembly is investing more in such long term projects.
The CHPS Compound, Mr. Odamtten continued, should help improve on maternal healthcare delivery, safe child birth, provide Out Patient Department (OPD) services, and First Aid care. Because the U-Compound has been contributing largely to the local economy of Tema Newtown and giving more revenue to the assembly through the large sales of smoked fish especially, Mr. Isaac Ashai Odamtten promised the residents a community library and other social and recreational facilities.
Dr. John Yabani, Tema Metro Health Directorate, on his part, explained that the CHPS Compound will intervene in the control of ailments in the area, especially when health service has become expensive. He said the facility shall have a trained nurse solely attached to it, and whose additional responsibility would be to visit patients’ homes with service packages to women and children.
Lastly, he said a volunteer and a committee had been set up to help reach homes to educate residents on the need to live a healthy life to avoid catching any diseases. That same day, the TMA cut the ribbon to open a GH¢341,000 market complex at Tema Manhean to boost the economy of the area.
The new market, which is at the first phase, is one storey with 18 shops—nine on the ground floor and the other nine on the first floor. Work on the first phase lasted six months. The entire project comprises of two storeys with 17-unit shops, and the completion of the first phase is a major intervention that the assembly needed to roll-out for the overall improvement of the area’s market, and the Harbour City as a whole.
The second phase of the major intervention would include the modernisation, expansion, and in some instances, completely overhauling the existing commercial centers, and to rejuvenate the ‘dormant markets’ to be able to accommodate the present demands of the fast-growing population of the area.
The TMA boss hoped that the new facility would make the traders transact their businesses in a conducive environment, and also improve the aesthetic view of the Tema Manhean Central Business Market and sanitise the community. Mr. Odamtten appealed to the traders and residents to also honour their financial obligations to the assembly, to enable it execute more development projects for the benefit of all.
He paid tribute to his predecessor, Mr. Robert Kempes Ofosuware, for the befitting initiative. Commending all past MCEs of Tema for their good intentions in seeing Manhean gets a befitting market, Nii Osonga Adjei Kraku II, Paramount Chief of the Tema Traditional Area, commended the immediate past MCE, Mr. Kempes, for his constant push for the building of the market complex.
He thanked Mr. Odamtten for continuing with the visions of his predecessor. Nii Kraku II charged the traders to be responsible and keep their ‘offices’ clean by observing simple sanitation and health rules. However, there was an observation The Chronicle made, and that was the entire Tema Manhean Market has no urinal for traders and their patrons.
The new market did not have a place of convenience either. Interacting with a few of the market women, they told The Chronicle that they usually urinated in plastic containers, and later poured the urine into a gutter in front of the market.
Following this observation by The Chronicle, the TMA and Rock Everest Construction Limited, the construction firm, should look at their drawing again, and as soon as possible, construct urinals and toilets for the market women to prevent messy sights at the business center.