Ghana Rubber Estate Limited (GREL) as part of its corporate social responsibility has constructed a Health Center worth €200,000 for Abura Township and its adjoining communities in Ahanta West District of the Western Region.
The health facility is to complement the old one, which was constructed several decades ago.
The Abura Health Center operates out-patient services and only detains patients with critical conditions which are later referred to the Effia Nkwanta Regional Hospital in Takoradi.
Abura Health Center records about 15, 000 out-patients at the center with diverse health conditions yet the facility lacks a laboratory, other medical equipment and staff accommodation which may facilitate quality health care delivery.
The Managing Director of GREL, Lionel Barre, in an interview with www.3news.com hinted that it cost the company “about €200, 000 just for the building”.
He added that GREL from time to time will be furnishing the Center with medical equipment to enhance quality health care.
He intimated that GREL is apt to work and develop the 85 communities it operates within.
For the sake of such infrastructural developments, Mr. Barre called on its outgrowers to be loyal, noting sidebuyers are only interested in the rubber produce and not community development.
He said unlike GREL, sidebuyers do not follow standard process in processing rubber before its importation hence leading to all forms of pollutions.
Touching on effects of illegal small scale mining popularly known as ‘galamsey’ on the rubber industry, he emphatically stated, “Galamsey is a threat to the rubber industry since the activities are poisoning the soil and the river”.
He made a clarion call to clamp down the menace.
“Every human being should fight against it”.
He called on stakeholders for a more proper and regulated way of exploring gold in the country.
Reacting to outgrowers selling GREL produce to side buyers, the Paramount Chief of Nsein Traditional Area, Awulae Agyefi Kwame II, who also doubles as chairman of Association of Chiefs on whose Land GREL Operates (ACLANGO), called on outgrowers to desist from the act.
He urged GREL to report culprits to ACLANGO to be penalized.
On her part, the District Health Director of Ahanta West District Assembly, Caroline Otoo, commended GREL for seeing to its corporate social responsibilities but asked that they equip the facility with medical equipments like “delivery sets and beds, medicine cabinet, autoclave for sterilization” among others, which will help improve health care delivery for patients.
Tackling challenges faced by the district, she noted that for a period now the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) has not been reimbursing health centers and, as a result, have run out of funds which could have negative effects on health care delivery.
“NHIS is not paying. I learnt they are going to pay. We use money to run the facility but now we’ve run out of funds. Seriously, we are hoping that we’re paid so that we run the facility very well.”
She also indicated that Ahanta West District is still recording cases of lymphatic filariasis, a condition caused by parasitic worms known as filarial worms. This condition is mostly known as elephantiasis.
She noted that the condition is almost extinct in the country but not in the Ahanta West District.
She stated, however, that the health directorate is putting in measures to curb the condition.
By Loveridge Ampratwum Okyere|Connect FM|3news.com|Ghana