Kuoro Richard Babini Kanton IV, the Paramount Chief of the Tumu traditional area, has appealed to the government to help rebuild a new children’s ward and a mortuary facility for the Tumu Municipal hospital in the Sissala East Municipality.

He said the rebuilding of the children’s ward would help solve the accommodation and overcrowding challenges in the hospital while the mortuary facility would help serve the growing population, who may want to preserve the bodies of their dead relatives.

Kuoro Kanton IV, who is also a member of the Council of State, made the appeal during the visit of Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, the Vice President, to the area as part of his tour to the upper west region.

Kuoro Kanton IV commended the government for the sod cutting to construct an ultra-modern astro turf sports complex for the Municipality.

“I wish to commend your government and our Member of Parliament for this initiative as the facility when executed will provide the youth an opportunity to nurture their skills and talents in the area of sports. It will also enable the young ones to spend their leisure time prudently instead of engaging in social vices”.

He, however, urged the Vice president to honour an invitation towards the celebration to climax the Kanton Senior Secondary school at 60 scheduled for Saturday, 22nd October.

“I wish to kindly appeal to you to do well to join me unveil a bust in memory of my late father, Kanton II in whose memory the school was named”, Tumu kuoro requested.

A visit by the Ghana News Agency team to the Tumu Municipal hospital revealed that the children’s ward got burnt in 2019 as a result of major structural and electrical defects and has since been closed.

Dr. Charles Wood, a Medical Superintendent at the hospital, said the effect of the fire resulted in the movement of the children unit to the current emergency unit, which was much smaller and mostly crammed compared to the children’s ward.

“Regularly, there are seasonal variations where the bed occupancy outstrips available beds,” he said.

“We would again be very grateful if the children’s ward could be rehabilitated as that would help ease congestion in the hospital and also help restore the hospital emergency unit which has now also been moved to a small cubicle at the Out Patient Department (OPD) of the hospital”.

Source: GNA