The Health Minister, Kwaku Agyeman Manu, has stated that the Akufo-Addo led government has not abandoned hospital projects started by the erstwhile Mahama administration.
According to him, several hospitals started by the Mahama administration have been completed, commissioned, and currently in use.
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“The government has never abandoned any health facility that was started by the previous government before 2017”.
He added that the University of Ghana Medical Centre, and the Ga East Hospital – which is currently the major center for COVID-19 – have been operationalized by the Akufo-Addo administration.
President Nana Akufo-Addo on Sunday, April 26, 2020, during his address to update the nation on the Covid-19 pandemic, said the disease has not only disrupted lives, but it has also exposed deficiencies in the country’s healthcare system, because of years of under-investment.
Also, the virus had revealed the unequal distribution of healthcare facilities, as the focus of infrastructure had been on Accra and one or two of our other big cities.
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To help improve upon the existing situation, the President announced that the government had decided to undertake a major investment in the healthcare infrastructure, which will be the largest in the country’s history. This, he said will involve the construction of 88 hospitals in the districts without hospitals.
This announcement has generated public discussions about some hospital projects started by previous governments that have not been completed or have been abandoned apparently, while new health projects are being promised by the current government.
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This, in an interview on the Happy Morning Show on Happy 98.9 FM, with Samuel Eshun, Governance Expert said the promise was made out of fear. “COVID-19 has exposed our retarded development, especially in the health sector. God has been good to us but had the virus spread more rapidly, we would’ve all died. Where are the hospitals? What is the doctor to patient ratio in Ghana?
He, however, revealed that “This is the fear that griped the President to make the promise to build the district hospitals. He knows very well that should the pandemic go out of hand, Ghanaians will die, because the country does not have a good number of hospitals”.
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The President has however admitted that the pandemic is a wake-up call for the country to shore up its health infrastructure.