The Greater Accra Regional Hospital (GARH) has inaugurated a state-of-the-art Feto-Maternal Unit facility aimed at improving care for high-risk pregnancies and enhancing maternal and neonatal health outcomes.
The facility, which was inaugurated by the hospital on Friday, is equipped with various machines, including a high-resolution ultra sound machine for the assessment of pregnant women and their unborn babies.
Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, the Medical Director of GARH, Dr Ralph Armah, said that the facility had become necessary due to the technological advancement in maternal care delivery.
Dr Armah said he was hopeful that the facility with the machines it was equipped with would help reduce foetal and maternal outcomes in the obstetrics and gynaecology department of the hospital.
Additionally, Dr Armah said he was optimistic that the inauguration of the facility would inspire young doctors at the hospital who aspired to become specialists in the field of obstetrics and gynaecology.
For his part, the head of the obstetrics and gynaecology department of the GARH, Dr Martin Owusu Boamah, said that before the inauguration of the facility, the hospital had a challenge of assessing high-risk pregnancies as it was unable to pick up abnormalities of unborn babies during pregnancies.
However, he said that with the existence of machines such as the high-resolution ultra sound machine, abnormalities of unborn babies could easily be assessed and picked up by the hospital, thereby minimising the proportion of bad outcomes for pregnancies.
“This facility is not to serve only clients of the hospital, but the idea is that all pregnant women attending facilities where they don’t have feto-maternal specialists can be brought here for them to be assessed, “Dr Boamah added.
Dr Kwaku Doffour-Dapaah, a Maternal-Fetal Medicine Specialist at the GARH, said that the hospital could now attend to about 20 patients in the ultra sound room with the existence of the high-resolution ultra sound machine.
He further said, “For the regular clinic for high-risk patients, we can see about 30 patients on a daily basis. The rest of the patients with low risk pregnancies are seen at the regular antenatal clinic.”
Dr Doffour-Dapaah said a simulation training centre had been established within the facility to help in the training of medical doctors, midwives, and medical students who visited the health facility in the management of various medical conditions.
According to him, GARH had two of the maternal fetal medical specialists in the country, adding that the feto-maternal unit was the first to be established within the Ghana Health Service (GHS).
BY BENJAMIN ARCTON-TETTEY
