The Chief Executive of Hope for Future Generation, Cecilia Senoo has called on the government to prioritise the robustness of already existing health facilities over building new ones.
Madam Senoo, who was reacting to JoyNews’ docu-series ‘Sick Hospitals’ where many health facilities across the country are in a deplorable state, was skeptical that government’s Agenda 111 was the solution to the problem.
Contributing to deliberations on JoyNews’ PM Express, the CEO urged the government to rather invest the funds for Agenda 111 into revamping the existing hospitals.
While expressing concern over the state of logistics in various municipalities, districts, and sub-districts, the CEO highlighted the breakdown of essential equipment and the lack of basic consumables in health facilities.
“The money that we will use to build hospitals should be used to maintain the hospitals and provide the basic health commodities and consumables for patients to receive good healthcare services,” she said on Wednesday.
The CEO underscored the necessity of prioritising the maintenance and restoration of broken-down facilities to ensure that patients receive quality healthcare services.
“We don’t have basic consumables and things that would save the lives of the people who visit these health facilities. And so there is no need to build new hospitals now,” she told host Evans Mensah.
Drawing attention to the universal health coverage goals set for 2030, the CEO urged the government, the Health Ministry, and the Ghana Health Service to address the current health crisis by focusing on the proper allocation of funds and resources.
“We are in a health crisis as a country. We should use the money to maintain already existing hospitals and restore the broken-down facilities,” she stated.
Reacting to this on the same show, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Health Ministry, Isaac Offei Baah said the inadequate supply of logistics does not negate the need for new hospitals.
According to him, some areas in the country the closest health facility is far, thus, the need to build hospitals.
He also touted Agenda 111 as a laudable project that would make healthcare readily accessible to all and sundry.
“The fact that we have some hospitals that are having issues does invalidate, the necessity or the reason why we have Agenda 111,” he said.
He further argued that the rehabilitation of some deplorable hospitals will be more cost effective if a new hospital is built.
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