District Hospital - Amasaman
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Date
1991-09-15
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Abstract
Health which is defined as the state of complete physical, mental and social well-being of individuals is almost universally valued by man. Concern for health and for prevention and treatment of illness has been a part of all cultures throughout human history.
The history of medicine itself is supposed to have dated back to hundreds of years before Christ and has passed through several civilizations. It is often said that the Greek Physician, Hippocrates born 460 BC, is the father of Orthodox medicine. The practice of medicine in these days gone by was based on trial and error and people who were versed in the art usually acquired their knowledge from their fathers of members of their families. The cause of disease was normally linked to spiritism, witchcraft, divinity or others.
In this present day, medicine has moved from the realm of guesswork, spiritism, witchcraft and divinity in the causation of disease to scientific enquiry based upon systematic history-taking of the cause of disease and carefully conducted clinical examination with the support of ancillary services such as medical laboratory investigations, X-ray, ultra- sound etc.
Modern medical services and technology
however, seeks to meet to a large extent the demands of the people even-tugh they cannot be completely met.
In Ghana, there had been a steady expansion of health services in the 1960s and late 1970s, but unfortunately this virtually grounded to a halt by the early 1980s. In hospitals and health centres, facilities were either lacking or bad rundown, drugs were not available and trained health staffs were leaving the country.
Until 1983, Ghanaians had been used to a virtually free health services but the Provisional National Defence Council (P.N.D.C.) government introduced hospital fees as part of its economic recovery programme (E.R.P.). In 1985 the fees were increased. This idea was mainly to create a revolving fund to supplement the running cost of the hospitals. The main thrust of the E.R.P. was to reverse the decline of health infrastructure and to substantially improve service delivery in terms of quality and coverage.
It is in this light that in 1988 the PNDC government instituted its law 207 which brought into being the formation of 110 Districts, with one of its main functions being to provide efficient health services and needs for its people.
This background has therefore necessitated the design of a District Hospital for the Ga District which is one of the newly formed districts to be located at Amasaman, the Capital.
Description
A thesis submitted to the Board of Postgraduate Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Postgraduate Diploma in Architecture, 1991