Ecobank offers GHS600,000 support to hospitals and schools

GNA – Ecobank Ghana has donated medical equipment, computers and awarded scholarships worth over GH?600,000 to various institutions and individuals to mark its fourth annual Ecobank Day.

The annual Ecobank Day is a community-action day set aside to embark on major corporate social responsibility projects across Africa to meet identified societal needs.

The bank’s staffs across the continent are also encouraged to devote the day to serving communities in which the group operates.

This year, Ecobank Ghana and its sister institutions gave out various sophisticated medical equipment to the maternal departments of seven hospitals in the country, 15 computers and 100 career development books to three senior high schools in Aflao, and three-year full scholarship to 25 brilliant but needy senior high school students across the country.

Ecobank’s focus on education and health is in line with its theme for the celebration which is: “Promoting ICT Education and Improving Maternal Health Care in Africa”.

The medical equipment donated include suction machines, ultrasound machines, incubators, autoclave desktops, delivery beds, infant weighing scales, radiant heaters, phototherapy lights, and oxygen concentrators.

Mr Dan Sackey, the Managing Director of Ecobank Ghana, who presented the medical equipment to the Maternity Department of the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, said similar equipment was presented to six other hospitals in the country.

The other beneficiary hospitals are La General Hospital, Tema Polyclinic, Maternal-Child Health Hospital in Kumasi, Kumasi South Hospital, and Tamale Government Hospital.

Mr Sackey said the bank’s focus on maternal health care and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) stemmed from the fact that women in developing countries continued to die from preventable complications.

A World Health Organisation report indicates that 830 women die daily from preventable complications associated with pregnancy and childbirth, and 99 per cent of the deaths occur in developing countries.

“This is lamentable more so for women living in rural and impoverished areas – and this is what drove the decision to use Ecobank Day this year to help reduce maternal mortality in our countries,” he said.

On ICT, Mr Sackey said recent studies by Aga Khan University in Kenya showed that access to ICT facilities in schools in Africa was 150 students per computer while the ratio was 15 per computer in developed countries.

He said the studies also showed ICT had penetrated all sectors of economies and that showed how important it was to improve ICT studies in schools, hence the decision by Ecobank to help schools with computers this year.

Dr Roberta Lamptey, the Acting Medical Director of Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, was full of gratitude to Ecobank for the continuous support to the hospital since 2012 through the provision of US$200,000 as well as GH?25,000 from the Ecobank ladies to the hospital in 2015.

Ecobank staff also used the celebration to clean up the various beneficiary hospitals and donated food and drinks to patients on admission.

GNA