Pusu-Namongo (U/E), The Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA) has commissioned a state-of-the-art disability friendly secretariat and guest house at Pusu-Namongo in the Talensi District of the Upper East Region.
The one-storey building facility is fitted with air-conditioners in all 24 self-contained executive rooms with flat-screen television sets, refrigerators, Close-Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras for security, free WiFi, car park, restaurant, laundry and about 500 capacity seater conference hall, among other facilities.
The structure, which is the tenth of the Association’s secretariats and guest houses across its ten administrative Regions in the country, is friendly to Persons with Disabilities (PWDs).
The guest house was constructed from a levy on members and is open for use by GRNMA members and the public.
Speaking at a ceremony, Chaired by the Paramount Chief of the Talensi Traditional Area, Tongraan Kugbilsong Nanlebegtang, to commission the facility, Mrs Perpetual Ofori-Ampofo, the President of the GRNMA, said the construction work started in February 2016, and owing to some challenges, work delayed.
‘The current administration of the GRNMA took up the mantle of the Association in January 2020, and at the time, the project had challenges which needed to be resolved.
‘We did our best, and we were looking forward to having it completed within a year, but things did not turnout the way we expected,’ Mrs Ofori-Ampofo explained the reason for the delayed construction.
She paid tribute to the late former Acting President of the Association, Mr Donald Asamani, who was a native of the Talensi District for his contributions to the Association, and said the conference hall of the facility would be named after him.
‘He was a formidable son of this land who served in various capacities within the Association,’ she noted.
Mrs Ofori-Ampofo enumerated some benefits members enjoyed from the Association, saying ‘We annually pay for the Personal Identification Numbers (PINs) and Axillary Identification Numbers (AINs) renewal of members’ licences and we give loans to members.
‘We give land and housing mortgage support to members, we provide health support to members who have conditions outside the National Health Insurance and even those that are covered by the National Health Insurance among other types of support’. she said.
Mrs Ofori-Ampofo also mentioned the annual national awards ceremony for members, and used the occasion to charge the Regional Executives of the Association to ensure that members stayed united for a common goal.
Mr Thomas Lambon, the Regional Chairman of the Association, said after several years of struggle to acquire land for the project, ‘Nurses and midwives of the Upper East Region can now give a sigh of relief.’
He emphasized that the facility satisfied the PWDs Act 2006, Act number 715, ‘Any Person with disability who finds himself or herself here will easily have access to any part of the building,’ he noted.
Mr Lambon expressed gratitude to the national leadership of the Association, and gave the assurance that the facility would be properly maintained to serve its purpose.
Mr Thomas Wuni Pearson Duanab, the Chief Executive for the area and Chair of the District Security Council (DISEC), urged leadership of the Association to ensure that details of guests who visited the facility were properly documented.
‘We have a Region that is closer to Burkina Faso, where we have a lot of Jihadists running into our country. We want to implore you to make sure that the details of your guests are properly documented, so that we do not have such persons coming to live here and after having caused mayhem, we cannot trace them,’ he said .
Source: Ghana News Agency