Stop this guinea pig syndrome!

It looks like the state is beginning to realise that it cannot have its way in the frantic use the people of the Ashanti Region as guinea pigs in its effort at ramming down that ridiculous Capitation Grant obviously conceived without proper consultation.

After a marathon meeting with stakeholders in Kumasi on Monday, Minister of Health Alban Kingsford Sumana Bagbin conceded that the Capitation Grant, in its current form, could not be forced down the throats of the people. He hinted at paving the way for a re-think of the programme.

Obviously drawing experience from the failed STX Korea deal, Mr. Bagbin, former Minister of Water Resources, Works, and Housing, conceded that the system could not be made to continue in its current form. The Chronicle understands the Minister to be saying that the Capitation Grant, in its current form, cannot be made to continue.

We call on the Minister to use his influence to get this dispute ended amicably. In the view of The Chronicle, the only means of ending the dispute is to withdraw the ridiculous Capitation Grant.

It defies logic that an administration that has the welfare of the people at heart, would sit down and come out with a directive that a person reporting ill at any private health institution in one particular region, cannot be treated at a cost beyond GH¢1.70.

Even more ridiculously, the same patient reporting to a state hospital would have to be treated at a cost not beyond GH¢0.59 in the Ashanti Region, according to the Capitation Grant.

Why the government chose the Ashanti Region, which is the stronghold of the opposition New Patriotic Party, seems to suggest that it does not care one hoot about the lives of the opponents of this government.

To add insult to injury, the government sent Central Regional Minister Ms. Comfort Ama Benyiwa Doe and Mr. Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, General Secretary of the ruling National Democratic Congress, two of the most divisive political elements in this country, to broker peace, when service deliverers in the Ashanti Region were threatening to vote with their feet.

Instead of the peace envisaged by sending these two officials of the ruling party, the position of service deliverers in Ashanti were solidified the more, in their opposition to the pittance of a grant.

The Chronicle recalls that some doctors in the region were annoyed by the idea of sending two of the most divisive political leadership in the country, to try and resolve such a sensitive matter. The notion was that if the policy was so good, why would the Central Regional Minister, for instance, not call for the experiment to begin in her region?

The pittance level of the Capitation Grant has raised the political temperature in the region to boiling point. The Chronicle believes it needs not be so. We believe that Mr. Bagbin can bring the temperature down by getting the Government of Ghana to suspend the Capitation Grant, until all stakeholders have agreed on the formula, and the quantum of money needed to sustain the project.

As it is, the Ashanti Region has been made to feel that the region is being made a guinea pig, for no other reason than that most people in the region do not follow the administration of Prof. John Evans Atta Mills.