Midwives and Staff at the St. Gregory Hospital are defying all odds to deliver babies and attend to child welfare.
The huge number of antenatal and post-natal attendance in the face of inadequate number of health personnel and logistics, make the staff move beyond expected capacities to ensure quality care is delivered to the most vulnerable in the community.
The Hospital has a total staff strength of Two Hundred and Nine (209) with a bed capacity of fifty-nine (59).
There are five
(5) Doctors’ two (2) of whom are Specialists. The Nursing staff strength is one hundred and ten (110) with twenty-seven (27) Midwives.
In 2017, a total of 10,416 Antenatal cases, representing an increase of 42.40% of the previous year, was recorded. In the same year, 2327 Post-natal, 2344 Deliveries and 634 Caesarian sessions were recorded. The Midwife Delivery Ratio is 1: 148 and Midwife Patient Ratio is 1: 478.
Inadequate space at the maternity block, lack of ambulance to be used to transfer mothers who might be referred for further treatment and equipment including incubators, remain major challenges to the discharge of effective and quality healthcare delivery.
The St. Gregory Hospital is located at Gomoa Buduburam in the Gomoa East District of the Central Region. The Liberian Civil War caused an influx of Liberians into Ghana in 1990. They were given refugee status and kept at Buduburam camp.
Undoubtedly, the refugees had health challenges. To cater for the health needs of those refugees, His Eminence Peter Cardinal Appiah Turkson, the then Metropolitan Archbishop of Cape Coast directed the establishment of a clinic at Buduburam for the refugees. The Cardinal had support from the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) and the Ghana Refugee Board to establish the clinic.
In 1997, most of the refugees left the country for Liberia due to the relative peace over there. The UNHCR stopped offering support and the clinic was closed in the year 2000. The Archdiocese of Cape Coast was not comfortable with the closure. The Archdiocese revived the clinic under the supervision of St. Luke Hospital in 2002. Unfortunately, the political situation in Liberia changed for the worse, More refugees came back in 2007. This made the UNHCR, the Refugee Board, and Gomoa District Health Directorate join hands with St. Luke Hospital and the Archdiocese of Cape Coast to initiate a process of integrating the clinic into the Ministry of Health (MOH). These partners left on 6th May, 2007 leaving only St. Luke Hospital and the Archdiocese of Cape Coast. The Archdiocese of Cape Coast with supervision from St. Luke Hospital developed the clinic into a hospital.
St. Gregory as a hospital now has a total staff strength of two hundred and nine (209) with a bed capacity of fifty-nine (59).
There are five (5) doctors two (2) of whom are Specialists. The Nursing staff strength is one hundred and ten (110) with twenty-seven (27) midwives.
The Hospital provides among other services such as Gynaecology, Child Welfare Clinic, Surgery, HIV /AIDS Care, Pastoral Service, Internal and Family Medicine.