President Akufo-Addo in his 8th address to the citizens of ghana announced the construction of hospitals in some 88 districts across the country.
President Akufo-Addo in his address said; “There are district hospitals 88) districts in our country without ; we have six (6) new regions without regional hospitals; we do not have five infectious disease control centres dotted across the country, and we do not have enough testing and isolation centres for diseases like COVD-19. We must do something urgently about this. That is why the Government has decided to undertake a major investment in our healthcare infrastructure, the largest in our history. We will, this year, begin constructing 88 hospitals in the districts without hospitals,” he said.
The standard 100 -bed facilities which will be in districts without hospitals will also have accommodation for staff.
President Akufo-Addo also reiterated the government’s plans of building regional hospitals in the six new regions to boost healthcare delivery in the country.
He added that: “each of them will be a quality, standard-design, one hundred bed hospital, with accommodation for doctors, nurses and other health workers, and the intention is to complete them within a year. We have also put in place plans for the construction of six new regional hospitals in the six new regions, and the rehabilitation of the Effia Nkwanta Hospital, in Sekondi, which is the regional hospital of the Western Region.”
In a breakdown, Akufo-Addo stated that “We will, this year, begin constructing eighty-eight (88) hospitals in the districts without hospitals.
It will mean ten (10) in Ashanti, nine (9) in Volta, nine (9) in Central, eight (8) in Eastern, seven (7) in Greater Accra, seven (7) in Upper East, five (5) in Northern, five (5) in Oti, five (5) in Upper West, five (5) in Bono, four (4) in Western North, four (4) in Western, three (3) in Ahafo, three (3) in Savannah, two (2) in Bono East, and two (2) in North East Regions”
However, what has caused some Ghanaians to disregard the President’s announcement of the 88 district hospital is the fact there are several abandoned healthcare facilities spread across the country and the government seems adamant in completing them thus the newly made promise of 88 hospitals will may forever be on paper than grounds.
Since the assumption of office in 2017, the Akufo- Addo government has shifted forward its earlier announced deadlines for the completion of a number of hospital projects across the country.
The facilities include two regional hospitals and the six district hospitals.
The no-bed-syndrome that hit Ghana sometime past and the issue of abandoned hospitals compelled CITI FM and OccupyGhana to petition the President for the completion of all abandoned and uncompleted hospitals.
President Akufo-Addo through the petition in August 2018 gave an assurance that a number of projects will be completed according to the schedule below:
As of May 2019, five of the projects had already missed their deadlines. They were the Nkawkaw District Hospital, Twifo Praso District Hospital, Madina District Hospital, Tepa District Hospital, and the Wa Regional Hospital.
The government subsequently announced new deadlines for all the projects without detailed reasons as to why the deadlines for the five projects were missed.
The Minister for Health, Kwaku Agyemang Manu at the Health Ministry’s Meet-the-Press session earlier this year said the projects will now be completed between July 2019 and June 2020.
In the presentation at the session, he announced the new deadlines as follows;
In this regard, some netizens have tagged the president’s announcement as political talk to appeal to the emotions of Ghanaians. For the President to be seen as working to fight the pandemic, the government should rather channel its resources into completing already started health facilities to help fight the virus, some netizens have advocated.
