23.January 2025 – Workshop day 2, presentation of the results to the management board, visit to 3 hospitals and handover of donations
The day started early again today. We had about 2 hours to continue and finish the workshop we started yesterday with our ICT colleagues from the university before we had an appointment with the university’s management board to present the results of our 2-day workshop.
It was probably a shock for the professors of the university’s management board present to see how we misused the walls of the main meeting room as a presentation surface for our workshop results. However, they accepted our way of working with the necessary composure.
It was a great surprise that we were able to tell them at this early stage exactly when we expected the individual work packages to be completed to ensure that we could start installing up to 220 PCs and laptops at the beginning of October. They were pleased that we had already appointed people to be responsible for the individual work packages at this stage. We believe that the presentation of the work breakdown structure made them realize how much preparatory work had to be done by the university before we at HITA could start installing the HITA PC labs.
It was important for us not only to get the management board’s approval for this project, but above all to gain acceptance for the working methods and communication channels we were proposing. In the end, it was Professor Daniel Obeng who assured us on behalf of the entire board that the board members would do everything they could to support us.
We then visited a further 3 hospitals to verify the whereabouts of the 60 beds delivered so far. The first visit was to the SDA hospital in Sunjany, a facility that we had visited for the first time years ago.
Next visit was to a small facility in Abesim, a suburb of Sunjany, and then the Regional Hospital, the only full-service provider in the entire Bono region.
In all the hospitals, the staff were very happy with the beds. They all praised the quality and robustness of the beds, but also the adjustment options, both from the point of view of the patients and the medical and nursing staff. However, one problem we encountered in almost all of the homes was the diversity of the beds. In one 20-bed room, we counted 17 different bed types from 16 different manufacturers. No wonder that most of the functions of our beds are only used randomly
As we had selected 1-2 trainers per selected facility according to the train-the-trainer principle, we thought that the induction would take place on site. Given the high staff turnover and the lack of a handover culture, this was a misjudgement on our part. We need to think about how we can simplify the functions of our beds so that they can actually be used to their full extent on site.
We need to provide the same level of support here as we did with regard to maintenance. We also have to produce short but easy-to-understand instructions for use and handling, which ideally can be hung up as posters in the respective wards (departments).
It is always a highlight for us when we are allowed to hand over donations. Today we had the opportunity to support two initiatives with our donations. Firstly, we presented Adam Siaka from Radio Wishdom 101.1 FM with a laptop for his initiative to provide local rural communities with health-related topics.
Later that evening, we met our friend and BVB fan Raphael, who will play a key role in setting up an NGO. Adam was a student representative at the Catholic University of Ghana and is now a teacher. He is a certified ICT expert and just the right person for us to support the NGO (Non Governmental Organization) that is currently being founded. We presented him with a high-quality cell phone to support him in his organizational tasks.