President Nana Akufo-Addo has said he will complete all 111 hospital projects he has started before leaving office.
Addressing the 60th-anniversary of the University of Ghana Medical School (UGMS) on Friday, 25 March 2022, the President said: “A great deal of the preparatory work for the execution of this ambitious project has been completed and it is my determination that the entire project will be completed before I leave office on 6th January 2025”.
The $1.765 billion project, according to the president, will provide 101 standard 100-bed district hospitals with accommodation for nurses and doctors in districts while six new regional hospitals will be put up for the new regions he created.
Additionally, the Effia Nkwanta Hospital in the Western region will be rehabilitated while one new regional hospital in the Western Region and three Psychiatric hospitals in each of the three zones in the country will be added.
When completed, the President said Ghana will become a “centre of medical excellence and a preferred destination for medical tourism in West Africa.”
The President noted that the “government is looking forward to also improve its accreditation seals for hospitals in the country and possibly acquire international accreditation seals such as Joint Commission International.”
Mr Akufo-Addo also bemoaned the refusal of doctors to take up posts in deprived areas.
“The news of doctors refusing posting to these areas is distressing. I encourage all medical practitioners to follow the worthy example of your great forebears who readily accepted postings in the early years, at a time when the national infrastructure was even more harrowing than it is today”.
“I am therefore appealing to you, as passionately as I can, to accept postings to accredited regional and district hospitals, where your services are needed most,” he urged.
President Akufo-Addo admitted that the country’s doctor-dentist population ratio currently remains poor, although “our medical schools have got a good reputation and have been training good doctors and dentists who find work with some ease, in all parts of the world, the doctor-dentist population ratio in our country still remains unsatisfactory after 65 years of nationhood.
“We currently do not have the right numbers of doctors, dentists and healthcare professionals with the right niche of skills and expertise in our regions, districts and deprived communities, especially for the newly-created regions and districts,” he pointed out.