Don’t stay home with chronic diseases – New Juaben Omanhene advises residents

The Omanhene of the New Juaben Traditional Area in the Eastern Region, Daasebre Kwaku Boateng III, has advised residents in the region, particularly those battling with chronic non-communicable conditions, not to stay home and suffer due to financial difficulties.

Such a situation, he indicated, tended to further put the lives of people suffering from chronic conditions in danger.

He said people with conditions such as cancer, kidney failure, diabetes, stroke and heart attack must immediately visit hospitals for specialised medical treatment.

He also urged such patients to take advantage of the Ghana Medical Trust Fund (GMTF) initiative, which provides financial support to help them access treatment.

The Omanhene gave the advice when the Administrator of the Ghana Medical Trust Fund, Adjoa Obuobia Darko-Opoku, and her team paid a courtesy call on him at his Yiadom Hwedie Palace in Koforidua as part of a stakeholder engagement and a sensitisation tour of the Eastern Region.

He welcomed the initiative, emphasising that it would be life-changing for families struggling with the high cost of treatment, especially those who depended on dialysis or chemotherapy.

At a stakeholder engagement in Koforidua, the Santanhene of New Juaben, Nana Dr Agyemang Boateng Kwadjan I, who represented the Omanhene, stated that the success of the fund should be measured by its ability to deliver meaningful financial relief to families, improve access to specialised medical treatment regardless of geographical location and prevent households from being impoverished by the cost of managing chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

He appealed to individuals and corporate organisations to support the fund, expressing optimism that improved access to treatment for chronic non-communicable diseases would contribute to longer and healthier lives for Ghanaians.

The Administrator of the GMTF, Ms Darko-Opoku, stated that the regional sensitisation exercise was critical and intended to bring the fund’s mandate and benefits directly to the people, particularly those who needed the support most.

She explained that the fund had been established in response to the immense financial and emotional difficulties families had to endure every day while seeking treatment for relatives living with NCDs.

Ms Darko-Opoku, therefore, called on traditional authorities, religious leaders, the media, market queenmothers and other community leaders to become ambassadors of the fund by helping to educate the public, identify eligible patients and encourage them to access available support.

The Eastern Regional Minister, Rita Akosua Adjei Awatey, described health care as a fundamental pillar of national development and expressed the hope that the sensitisation exercise would deepen public understanding of the fund and how it operated.

For his part, the Medical Director of the Eastern Regional Hospital, Dr Saanwie Suntaa Aiden, described the fund as a timely intervention and appealed to the team for the provision of a dialysis machine to strengthen the hospital’s capacity to manage patients with kidney-related conditions.

The Eastern Regional Director of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Damien Punguyire, who also called for collective support for the fund, emphasised the need to strengthen primary health care and the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to reduce the pressure on the specialised healthcare financing intervention.