KMA signs MOU with KNUST to solve development problems in Kumasi

THE Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) to establish a formal collaboration which will promote joint projects aimed at solving the development problems of the city of Kumasi.
Under the five-year agreement, KNUST is to provide technical support for the preparation and implementation of the City Development Strategy Programme which will cover infrastructure, tourism, local economic development, revenue generation and sanitation.
The two parties do not intend to enter into any contract which will create legal and financial obligations between them under the MOU but to facilitate and develop genuine and mutually beneficial programmes and activities.

The Vice-Chancellor of KNUST, Prof K. K. Adarkwa, and the Kumasi Metropolitan Chief Executive, Madam Patricia Appiagyei, appended their signatures to the MOU in Kumasi on Wednesday.
Under the agreement, the KMA is to collaborate with KNUST in the introduction of a new Master’s degree programme in Urban Management aimed at helping to build the capacity of the KMA in the management of the metropolis.
Madam Appiagyei described the collaboration between the two institutions as long overdue.
“I believe this is one of the best and finest universities in the sub-region and even beyond and it is a step in the right direction that this institution is being made to have an impact on the development of the city of Kumasi,” she said.
She said Kumasi used to be known as the Garden City of West Africa, saying that if the city was to regain its past glory, then KNUST had a vital role to play.
“I must say that it is not by chance that KNUST is located in the city. It is by design and it is, indeed, strategic. The time has come for us to feel and acknowledge the impact and presence of the university in the city,” she said.
She acknowledged that there had been previous arrangements between the KMA and KNUST which, for one reason or another, did not work.
“This time round, let us work hard at this collaboration, cut out all the bureaucratic tendencies which will hinder the establishment of the linkages and let us work at a faster pace,” the Metro Chief Executive said.
As part of a programme to beautify the city of Kumasi, the KMA last year set out to redevelop its 10 existing roundabouts through private sector participation and as of now all the roundabouts have been adopted by corporate bodies.
The development work to be undertaken by the corporate bodies includes horticultural work and the installation of imposing edifices.
Apaet from the roundabouts, there are several leisure parks dotted all over the city which need to be worked upon as part of the beautification programme and it is in these areas that the technical assistance and involvement of KNUST will be greatly required.
Madam Appiagyei said it was the expectation that the city in which the university associated with science and technology was located should be well laid out, beautiful and must not be found wanting in the area of development.
“Posterity will not forgive us if this collaboration is stifled,” she said.
She, therefore, challenged KNUST to bring its skills and expertise, research findings and the relevant projects it had undertaken to bear on the development of the city of Kumasi. Other areas to be tackled by the KMA under the MOU are the provision of logistical support within its means for KNUST in its research activities, the consideration of the creation of a Chair in Urban Management at KNUST, the opening up of facilities to staff and students of KNUST for purposes of carrying out research, and accepting students from KNUST for vacation training in its facilities.
The KNUST on the other hand is to support the KMA in initiating and executing projects aimed at revitalising the Central Business District (CBD) of Kumasi with particular reference to Kejetia, assist in the management of the city through provision of technical support, carry out research which would anticipate the problems of the metropolis and advise on possible solutions.
Other areas include making available to the KMA existing data in the form of plans, students’ theses, staff research reports as may be required by the KMA, help the KMA to plan and execute policies aimed at protecting the water bodies in the metropolis within the context of achieving the general ornamental development of the metropolis.
The KNUST is also to introduce programmes aimed at re-training middle level personnel of KMA in the requisite skills and competencies, introduce programmes aimed at providing continuing professional development of staff of KMA, provide priority to qualified KMA staff who wish to enrol on graduate programmes and encourage its students to sensitise the general public to issues of sanitation and development control through the organisation of seminars and workshops.

Cardiovascular diseases emerging to become one of the most dramatic incoming epidemics

Cardiovascular diseases are emerging progressively to become one of the most dramatic incoming epidemics in the next two decades in Ghana.
According to Professor Charles A. Yankah, a Physician and an Executive Board Member of the African Cultural Institute of Berlin, the situation would be alarming if measures were not taken to check its predisposing factors from getting higher.
He said the disease could soon succeed HIV infection as a major killer in the society if education for prevention was not well appreciated.
Speaking in Kumasi at the 4th African Heart Seminar, which aims at promoting cardiovascular health care education in Africa, Prof. Yankah said every third adult Ghanaian like African-Americans suffers from hypertension or diabetes.
“This is due to a positive change in the life-style among modern Africans”, he said.
He said it appears there was an increase in the incidence of hypertension and diabetes related heart failure and cardiovascular deaths, such as acute myocardial infection, stroke or aortic rupture which are occasionally also described as sudden death.
The Seminar was organisedn colloboration with the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH), Christian Barnard Memorial Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa and the African Cultural Institute of Berlin.
A Physician and a Professor at the Deutsche Herzentrum and Charite Medical University in Berlin, Germany, Prof Yankah said without concerted efforts and action to improve cardiovascular disease prevention and to develop a sustainable medical surgical programmes in regional hospitals, cardiovascular disease would undermine the socio economic development in African society.
He said because of the lack of intensive care in Ghana, if a person gets an intensive cardiac attack the probability of survival in Ghana was 10 percent as compared to 60 percent in Europe.
He said a diagnosis of heart failure once signalled imminent death, 50 percent of the victims diagnosed with it would be dead within five years or earlier.
He said there are many other diseases besides diabetes and hypertension that cause heart failure and cardiovascular death, heart muscle disease, electrical conduction disturbance, rheumatic heart disease and congenital heart disease.
Prof Yankah said the incidence of rheumatic and congenital heart diseases was also alarming and that it was higher among the rural than the urban population.
He called for the intensification of public education about the disease and added that until very recently there was not much documents and information on diseases associated with lifestyles since the perception was that the country's health problems were overwhelmingly those of infections and parasitic infections, malnutrition and disorders that impacted adversely on safe motherhood.
He therefore called on the various stakeholders in the health delivery sector to make cardiovascular diseases a major public health issue.
He said there was the need for the country to treat the disease as a public health importance and the necessary resources allocated.
He said the grown-ups with congenital heart disease for example is a paradigm of poor healthcare programme, medically and surgically in childhood and that those who survive childhood are at a constant risk of developing heart failure under stress and die.
He called on physicians to repeatedly and categorically point out the risk factors for developing heart diseases and stroke and also called for the avoidance of fatty foods and making regular exercise as prognostic factors for good health to reduce incidence of cardiovascular diseases.

Clinic 4 KNUST students

THE authorities of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) have provided a special students’ clinic to help boost health delivery on campus.
The Director of the University Health Services, Dr Yaw Bio, said the clinic would provide services solely for students to enable them go about their studies peacefully.
He said students, as well as staff of the university, had not been able to receive prompt medical attention, especially during the morning peak hours, as a result of the congestion at the Out-patients Department (OPD) of the University Hospital.
He said a health facility to cater solely for students, therefore, could not be overemphasised.
At the inauguration of the clinic on Monday, Dr Bio said the University Hospital, which was built in 1952 as a dressing station to cater for the then university community of less than 3,000, had only grown by additions and modifications into a fully-fledged 100-bed hospital.
He said the university community had grown in leaps and bounds to a population of about 150,000, with a student population of 21,000, not to mention the ever-growing surrounding communities, yet not a single addition or expansion had been made to the original hospital facility.
Dr Bio said OPD attendance at the hospital kept escalating.
“We had 85,000 in 2005 and 92,000 in 2006, with 26,000 out of the total figure being students,” he said.He said the students’ clinic would not be isolated but become a real appendage to the main hospital, explaining that the clinic would run from Monday to Friday.
The Vice-Chancellor of the university, Professor K. K. Adarkwa, who inaugurated the clinic, said an old building was refurbished at the cost of ¢200 million for the clinic.
He said the current student population of more than 22,000, coupled with the over 3,000 staff and their dependants, as well as those from the surrounding communities, made it necessary for the provision of a special clinic for only students.
He advised students to be patient whenever they visited the clinic for treatment and also treat the health personnel there with the utmost respect, courtesy and dignity.