Ndalatando – The Ministry of Health has approved a project aimed to build a new General Hospital in northern Cuanza Norte Province, within 18 months, with a capacity of 200 beds.
As a symbol of the start of the project, the foundation stone for the construction of the infrastructure was laid this Saturday, by the minister of Health, Sílvia Lutucuta, with the effective start of the work scheduled for next week, under the responsibility of the company Griner.
The hospital will be built in an area of 15,000 square meters, in the locality of Kirima, eleven kilometres off Ndalatando City , capital of the province, and will have the capacity to serve more than a thousand patients daily.
According to the minister of Health, the new hospital unit will cost the state around 63 million US dollars, and the government ‘s objective is to improve health care in the region.
The new health unit will have a haemodialysis centre and pathological anatomy services, as well as neonatology, intensive care, dentistry, psychiatry, orthotrauma, operating room, ophthalmology, among other services.
The unit will also include an area for the treatment of patients with chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart and kidney diseases, which is why the minister says that it will be a Reference Center for the training of staff in various specialties in the areas of medicine, nursing and biomedical.
On his turn, the governor of Cuanza Norte, Adriano Mendes de Carvalho, underlined that the construction of this health unit is a project that has long been awaited by the population of the region, as it will be built to relieve the current provincial hospital.
The old hospital has been in existence for over 50 years, and no longer offers adequate conditions to respond to the current challenges, due to demographic growth and the emergence of various diseases, in addition to the degradation of the infrastructure.
According to the governor, this situation has embarrassed the local health authorities in providing services that meet the needs of the province, and he considers the construction of the project a great gain that will revolutionize health care locally.
He also added that the residents of the province will no longer need to go to other provinces for specialty medical care.
Cuanza Norte has 133 health units, including municipal hospitals, health centres and medical posts, created to alleviate the demands at the Provincial Hospital, which has insufficient structure and space to care for patients from the ten municipalities.
The province has nearly 500,000 inhabitants, and medical assistance to the population is provided by 197 physicians, including nationals and foreigners, and 946 nurses.
Source: Angola Press News Agency