Crickets in the theatre and leaking wards: How Lawra Hospital is battling century-old decay to save lives

The Lawra Municipal Hospital, a 98-year-old facility in the Upper West Region, is battling severe infrastructural decay, with medical staff recently forced to conduct emergency surgeries amid invading insects and deliver babies in wards with leaking roofs.

In emergencies, nurses are often forced to wheel pregnant women to another part of the hospital, or even outside the facility, to undergo ultrasound scans before they can be taken into theatre.

Mohammed Muslim, a nurse and deputy in charge of the theatre, disclosed that the facility previously relied on wooden doors and louvre windows, which failed to keep the theatre airtight.