Journalists tour proposed Volta University facilities
Mr Joseph Amenowode, Volta Regional Minister, on Friday, accompanied by some journalists inspected incubatory facilities of the proposed University of Health and Allied Sciences for the Volta Region.
Sites visited, which were all at advanced stages of completion, were the two structures to house the Vice-Chancellor and Pro-Vice Chancellor, a 200-capacity hostel, lecture room and administrative block complexes, a laboratory, accommodation for principal staff and lecturers.
Mr Amenowode said some of the facilities, such as the residencies of the core staff, were temporary and cited that the bungalows of Vice Chancellor and Pro Vice-Chancellor were guest houses of the Volta Regional Coordinating Council.
The Minister said the 34 apartment residencies of lecturers were based on a Memorandum of Understand between the University Planning Committee and the Ministry of Health.
Mr Amenowode said the laboratory, hostels and administrative blocks at the precincts of the Volta Regional Hospital accentuate the fact that the university was being fashioned as a satellite of the hospital.
The Minister and journalists visited the 870 acre permanent site of the University, off the Ho-Accra highway, some 15 minutes drive from Ho.
He said as stated by President Mills in his recent encounter with journalists in Accra, a Chinese group had been on the site and that drawings were being matched with the topography of the area for constructional work to begin.
Mr Amenowode said the layout for roads and utilities were being done while Government was actively working to compensate land and property owners of the land.
He said the University, slated to have a campus at Hohoe, would operate from the buildings of the defunct Onchocerciasis Project, near the Hohoe Hospital and that procurement processes were going on to transform the Hohoe and the Volta Regional Hospitals into teaching hospitals.
Mr Amenowode said the perceived delay in starting academic work at the University was due to laborious regimen of university establishment processes “but the bottom line is that the Volta Region would get the University of Health and Allied Sciences as promised by the NDC.”
The Minister did not give definite answers to questions regarding time of first intake and said he was “only a facilitator of the project,” and explained that a university was an autonomous entity and such decisions were taken only by the University Council.
Mr Amenowode said following the passage of the law on the university, and the naming of university Council soon, “there is no reason why admission should not start this year”.
The University of Health and Allied Sciences is to be established as a research and practical orientated health educational institution dedicated to community service.
Its academic component includes; the schools of Allied Health Sciences, Nursing and Midwifery, Public health, Dentistry, Pharmacy and Medicine.
Source: GNA