The Ghana Province of the Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus (HHCJ) has inaugurated a new hospital at Atebubu in the Catholic Diocese of Techiman in the Bono East Region of Ghana, named after its foundress, Mother Charles Walker Catholic Clinic (MCWCC).
The HHCJ Sisters have worked in so many hospitals and health centers in Ghana, but the inauguration of the clinic is the first self-reliant health facility of the HHCJ Ghana Province.
Inaugurating the health facility on March 25, 2025, the Solemnity of Annunciation, the Most Rev. Dominic Yeboah Nyarko, Bishop of Techiman Diocese, said, “Today is a great feast for all of us, today is also a happy day for Atebubu that this small beginning will be a blessing to many.”
The Bishop said being the patronal feast of the HHCJ Congregation, the facility was opened by the HHCJ in the Ghana Province to help restore the health of the people of Atebubu.
He congratulated the HHCJ Sisters for the clinic project, which he said “represents more than just bricks and mortar, but it represents the healing ministry of God, to help bring quality health care.”
Bishop Yeboah Nyarko noted that Catholics were known for delivering the best services in Ghana because there’s discipline in their training, stating that “the springing of this facility does not mean competition with other health facilities, but it is to compliment others and it stands as a beacon of hope in delivering health care.”
He expressed gratitude to the chiefs for giving the church and the HHCJ congregation the land with the trust that something better would come from it and thanked all who have helped to make this dream a reality.
The inauguration was preceded by a Eucharistic celebration presided over by Very Rev Fr. James Annor, the chancellor of the Techiman Diocese, who called on the faithful to pause and reflect on salvation.
According to him, the very immediate beginning of God saving the world is the very beginning of the Advent, why the Annunciation is so important in the salvation history of the Church.
“That was the time God announced to the whole world that he was about to become a human being and wants the cooperation of no other person than Mary,” Fr. Annor said, adding that “One thing we must know is that, God is always ready to save but he does not impose his salvation on humanity.”
Mary, he said, cooperated with God’s plan of salvation for humanity and called on everyone to imitate this singular act of Mary, making the will of God to be done.
He encouraged the faithful to learn from Mary and her son and let the will of God be done in their lives, saying that “This is why it is very gratifying that the HHCJ congregation institutionalized this Fiat as they call themselves the Handmaids of the Lord, repeating this Fiat.”
He lauded the HHCJ for continuing the healing ministry of God and prayed that the new clinic would be one of the most effective ways the congregation would make the will of God be made known in Atebubu and its environs.
He also prayed that those who would work in the facility would see it as a continuation of the healing ministry of Christ and not just a way of getting jobs.
“Jesus came to heal. May the efficacious blood of God flow through this clinic so that those who come for healing may encounter the healing blood of Jesus,” Fr. Annor averred
Present at the inauguration were many health workers and directors, Chiefs of Atebubu, Priests and Religious and all the societies in the St. Patrick Catholic Church where the clinic is situated.
Sr. Emmanuella Dakurah, HHCJ (Sister communicator)
