The Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG) will commission a new High Dependency Unit (HDU) for Covid-19 patients at St. Dominic and Holy Family Hospitals in Akwatia and Berekum respectively.
The High Dependency Units are equipped with state of the art including monitors, ventilators, infusion pumps, 3-crank hospital beds, patient trolleys, oxygen cylinders/concentrators, and other amenities.
The units have become a necessary measure to complement the national covid-19 response by mitigating pressure on the national treatment centers, cutting economic implications of referring a case including the cost of care for both the patient and the family.
The creation of the High Dependency Units for Covid-19 patients is part of the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office’s contribution and support for forty (40) districts through the COVID-19 Response and Institutional Capacity Building (CRIB) projects.
The CRIB is a two-year project funded by the FCDO which seeks to support the Government of Ghana’s response to COVID-19 in strengthening Ghana’s Health Systems to maintain the delivery of essential healthcare services and mobilize all available resources for COVID-19 response actions.
The project is currently being undertaken within CHAG facilities that are district hospitals in 40 districts (in 15 out of the 16 regions of Ghana).
The specific objectives of the CRIB Project are:
- To support National Response to COVID-19
- To build institutional capacity to support the continuation of basic healthcare services.
- To monitor and evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on health service delivery and share lessons learned on implementing Covid-19 response measures
Since the project started in July 2020, significant contributions to the COVID response actions. Aside from extending PCR and antigen testing to 40 and six (6) districts, the project has trained 6,430 health care workers on Infection Prevention and Control, reached out to several homes in rural areas with essential and factual messages on COVID-19 and thereby helping rural communities to stay safe from COVID-19. The project has provided Quality Improvement strategies in the delivery of health at all levels during
Several people who got infected with COVID-19 in moderate to severe forms have been managed by the CRIB facilities.
