The Akufo-Addo-Bawumia-led New Patriotic Party (NPP) is getting close to achieving its aim to build and fully furnish 111 new hospitals in districts spread across the country.
So far, eighty-six (86) of these hospitals, together with two (2) regional psychiatric hospitals and the western regional hospital are ongoing and at various stages of completion.
Speaking at the commissioning of the St. Michael’s Specialist Hospital in Accra over the weekend, President Akufo-Addo stated that “the average completion rate of the eighty-nine (89) ongoing projects is fifty-two percent (52%), with work at some of the sites being seventy to eighty percent complete.”
He told the well-attended gathering that the constructions of these 89 hospitals are being undertaken by indigenous Ghanaian contractors, who have provided direct and indirect jobs to Ghanaians.
In average terms, he indicated that there is an average of one hundred and twenty (120) workers on each construction site, and that when completed, an average of five hundred and forty-nine (549) persons will be employed in each district hospital, one thousand, three hundred and forty-three (1,343) in the regional hospital, and nine hundred and forty-seven (947) in each of the psychiatric hospitals.
“This means that sixty-seven thousand, six hundred and thirty-five (67,635) people will be employed in the Agenda 111 hospitals,” he emphasised.
The Agenda 111 initiative is providing 101 standard 100-bed district hospitals with accommodation for doctors and nurses in districts without district hospitals; six (6) new regional hospitals for each of the six new regions; rehabilitating the Effia-Nkwanta Hospital in the Western Region; building one (1) new regional hospital for the Western Region; and two (2) psychiatric hospitals for two of the three (3) zones of the country in the Middle and North.
The entire package is estimated to cost USD$1.765 billion.
Speaking at the commissioning of the hospital, which is an initiative of young entrepreneur, Michael Banahene, the President said, “beyond the building of these new healthcare facilities, my vision is to help make Ghana the Centre of Excellence for Medical Care in West Africa by 2030, leveraging on Ghana’s favourable status in the region as the most peaceful country in West Africa, a beacon of democracy on the continent, and a land of opportunities.”
He took the opportunity to reaffirm government’s commitment to improve access to essential and quality health services through the provision of the necessary health infrastructure, equipment and logistics, including the deployment of appropriate technology as part of the country’s drive to attaining Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
According to the President, that is why since assuming office in 2017, his government has restored nursing trainee allowances, recruited the highest number of healthcare workers in the history of the 4th Republic, with fifty-eight thousand and forty-one (58,041) health workers employed to supplement the existing health sector workforce at the height of COVID-19 alone.
Apart from that, he said “the Ghana Ambulance Service has been equipped with three hundred and seven (307) ambulances, that is One-Constituency-One-Ambulance, in comparison to the fifty-five (55) ‘semi-functioning’ ambulances that existed during the time of the Mahama government. We have made improvements in the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to make access easier, and we are using drones to deliver emergency medical supplies to remote areas.”
St Michael Specialist Hospital, which is located at Abeka Lapaz, aims to provide first-class, personalised and timely healthcare in a comfortable and luxurious environment.
The facility also aims to be the preferred health service provider in the country and in West Africa by providing excellent and patient-centred care while exuding true comfort.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu, Presidential Correspondent
