Seth Kwame Boateng was adjudged winner together with four others from Brazil, China, Benin and India of the International Center for Journalists’ 2017 award for his story that focused on the state of healthcare at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Ghana.

A panel of international judges selected the 2014 GJA Journalist of The Year as the winner of the International Center for Journalists’ 2017 Global Health Reporting Contest for his “Next to Die” Special Assignment documentary.

Seth Kwame Boateng becomes the first Ghanaian to win this prestigious award.

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Seth Kwame Boateng has been adjudged winner together with four others from Brazil, China, Benin and India of the International Center for Journalists’ 2017 award for his story that focused on the state of healthcare at Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Ghana.

Seth Kwame Boateng becomes the first Ghanaian to win this prestigious award.

“ICFJ received many applications from around the world, so you should be very proud of your accomplishment”, Vice President of Programs at the International CFJ, Emily Schult, said this in an email announcing Seth Kwame Boateng.

A panel of international judges selected the 2014 Ghana Journalist Association Journalist of the year as the winner of the International Center for Journalists’ 2017 Global Health Reporting Contest for his “Next to Die” Special Assignment documentary.

Ghana’s First Lady Rebecca Akufo-Addo in partnership with The Multimedia Group Limited has been raising funds towards the construction of a new Maternity as well as Mother and Baby Unit MBU) for the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH), to ease the congestion there. That ward will have five maternity beds, three operating rooms, four emergency delivery beds, 20 incubators and 20 phototherapy units. It will be an insulated building with forced cooling and it will reduce avoidable deaths by 60-80 percent.

The old dungeon had only two maternity beds, two operating rooms with tens of pregnant women queuing, sometimes to be operated upon in a period of an emergency. The move to put up an emergency maternity and mother and baby unit at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital follows a JoyNews Special Assignment documentary “Next to Die” which highlighted how about four babies die on the average each day at the facility, and how an average of 100 women die each year, while in labour there.

As a winner of the contest, ICFJ has invited the multiple award winner to the United States for a study tour focusing on global health issues.

Mr. Boateng and the other contest winners will visit Washington, D.C., Atlanta and New York to meet health experts and journalists. He will also receive a prestigious award for his story at an Awards Dinner in New York.

The event will feature a panel of experts engaging in a dialogue on urgent health matters.

“It is important that Mr. Boateng is present at the event as he will be able to connect with other contest winners as well as members of various prominent media, health, and communication professionals to contribute to a robust and collaborative network of health reporters”, the statement said.

ICFJ’s mission is to advance quality journalism worldwide. Our hands-on programs combine the best professional practices with new technologies.

On June 24, 2017, Seth won the Exclusive Men of The Year Africa Award (EMY AFRICA AWARDS) in the Communication Category for his impactful stories that continue to change lives in his community. The EMY Awards, created in 2016, are designed to recognize Ghanaian men whose passion and dedication have instituted major development at both the familial and national levels.

In June 2017, the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) named Seth Kwame Boateng as the first winner of its Journalist of the Month Series in recognition of his compelling television documentary that raised alarm and prompted action on the devastating maternal and child mortality situation in Ghana’s second largest medical facility.

ICFJ’s mission is to advance quality journalism worldwide. Its hands-on programs combine the best professional practices with new technologies.

Seeds will be sown, big and small, and in every shape or form to arrest the heartbreaking cycle of child death at KATH.

A woman, the First Lady, Rebecca Akufo-Addo, backed by the Multimedia Group would lead an army of philanthropists and corporate institutions to drive the campaign to end the many avoidable deaths at the Maternity Block of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.

It is a call she has embraced, a daring challenge undertaken to end the ignominious debacle of child deaths and to put smiles back on the faces of many women who have all but given up on having a seamless child birth.

Every woman who enters into a labour ward is optimistic of returning with the biggest reward she could ever give her family.

But those who enter KATH’s Mother and Child Unit have an extra emotional and psychological trauma of pushing away the thoughts of dying themselves or losing their babies even before or after the final push of glory.

This is because for many years, the unit which has been a place for procreation, a refuge for joy and happiness for families and an orchestra that produces rhythmic sounds of crying of babies, has also on several occasions, produced sounds of crying adults who did everything right to enjoy the fruit of child birth but reaped the pain of child and maternal deaths.

They came gleaming with hope but left with a grimace of hopelessness, dreading the adventure of going through another nine month miracle of child birth that may never be.

Such is the horrifying uncertainty families go through anytime the hour comes for a pregnant mother to give birth at the mother and child unit of KATH.

For years families lost their wives and children in silence, cried in silence and went back home in silence hoping it will never happen again but nine months later they returned queuing in the same congested labour ward and going through the same delivering-to-die-template because of poor and inadequate facilities at the KATH.

A documentary by Joy News’ Seth Kwame Boateng early last month captured in pictures, sounds and words the  pain families go through, the frustrations doctors nurses and other health workers endure each day attempting to deliver and save mother and child.

It emerged four babies die each other day at the KATH and on bad days the numbers rose to about ten.

A 43-year-old maternity ward has been left standing, uncompleted as families count the loss of their generations.

It is to solve this unconscionable cycle that the First Lady together with the Multimedia group are organising a fund raising event at the office of Mrs Rebecca Akufo-Addo at 5:00pm Thursday.

The event is to raise Ȼ10 million for a one storey maternity ward at KATH to ease the congestion as government works to complete the 43-year old structure.

It doesn’t matter how much you give. Any amount is neither too big or too small once it is channeled to saving the lives of boy or girl who may likely be Ghana’s next president.