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The Tema Metropolitan Chief Executive, Mr Isaac Ashia Odamtten, has called for intensified collaboration between the assembly and the Tema General Hospital for an accelerated campaign to reduce maternal mortality in the metropolis. As a result, the assembly has given assurance to support the hospital to complete a theatre project it has started. Mr Odamtten made the pledge when he undertook an assessment tour of the hospital last Tuesday to ascertain the needs of the facility which was established over 50 years ago. Mr Odamtten, who also inspected an assembly-funded mortuary project under construction, noted that the assembly would in the second quarter of 2014 complete the project. He called on management of the hospital to regularly liaise with the assembly to make the collaboration effective. Mr Odamtten encouraged the hospital staff to continue to render sacrificial duties to give meaning to the profession, saying that �your commitment will encourage others to provide for your needs�. He commended the hospital for having a good maintenance culture that had helped to salvage the otherwise old hospital. Mr Odamtten noted that it had not been easy injecting internally generated funds into projects and commended the hospital for using its funds to provide some of its needed infrastructure. The MCE inspected the Outpatients Department, a theater project which was underway, the antenatal and maternity wards, a waiting ward for pregnant women, a babies� bay, and the old and new morgues. He was not happy to see mothers being observed while they waited on benches because of lack of space and beds. Mr Odamtten also found women who had been delivered of babies waiting on the veranda only to go in to breastfeed their babies when the need arose. He noted that the assembly would appeal to the government to commit funds to an ongoing government maternity ward project at the hospital for early completion to help ease congestion at the existing maternity ward. The Medical Director of the Tema General Hospital, Dr Charity Sarpong, who conducted the MCE round, emphasised that the limited facilities at the hospital were being over-stretched because of the increasing number of patients. Problems She said there had not been any major expansion programme at the hospital, adding that there was acute water shortage in the hospital, inadequate security and absence of street lights to illuminate the compound at night. Dr Sarpong noted that efforts had been made to acquire water with some of its internally generated funds, while some support came from benevolent groups and individuals, saying that �but it was inadequate� and appealed for help to provide constant flow of water to serve especially the theaters and maternity wards. She proposed that a day be instituted as �Health Workers Day� to acknowledge, appreciate and reward dedicated health workers in the country. Dr Sarpong disclosed that the hospital had set itself to observe �Zero tolerance for maternal mortality� in 2014. She said the hospital had between 20 qnd 30 deliveries daily and had from January to December 10, 2013, delivered 6,800 babies safely. Dr Sarpong appealed to the assembly to help the hospital meet its infrastructural needs to cope with the increasing patients, considering its strategic location in the Greater Accra Region . The MCE was accompanied on the tour by the Tema Metropolitan Health Director, Dr John Yabani, the Tema Metropolitan Co-ordinating Director, Mr Felix Banduah, and some assembly and hospital staff.