The Abandoned Barekese Hospital - Part 2

There are more than several ways of going about the solution of the criminally abandoned Asante- or Kumasi-Barekese Municipal or General Hospital, not the least bit of which is to have the Chief or the Invested Traditional Ruler of the Area or District and/or Constituency team up with the express approval of The Asantehene, Otumfuo(r) Osei-Tutu, II, to officially petition “The Asante Projects Averse” or “No-Go” Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) for prompt and definitive resolution of this socioeconomic and political canker of the most heinous and depraved order, especially in view of the fact that the area under deliberation is one of the key centers of the economic development of the country.

In other words, regardless of which of the country’s two major political parties has political sway or an electoral stranglehold on any electoral district or constituency in the country, the National Development Agenda of any political party or government in power must squarely be predicated on the nonpartisan socioeconomic needs of the people and the overall significance and the relevance of the critical mass of the primary target of such national development project facility or amenity.

For instance, in his heart-rending narrative about the criminally depraved neglect or abandonment of the half-finished construction of the Barekese Municipal General Hospital, what MC Ishmael, the Citizen Reporter or Journalist who brought this most heinous act of inexcusable depravity to public and national attention ought to have even more pointedly highlighted, is the fact that upon completion, the Atwima-North General Hospital will not be operated on a bestially partisan basis. Rather, all ailing persons or patients intent on availing themselves of the various healthcare services provided by the Barekese Municipal Hospital will not be admitted on the basis of their partisan political affiliation or ethnicity or subethnicity. Instead, such an assortment of services that are apt to be provided by this all-purpose major health center would be squarely and primarily based on the needs of the patients of its service area and, very likely, even well beyond.

For that matter or reason, this act of abject and wanton criminality on the part of the leadership of the Mahama-led ragtag government of the National Democratic Congress also makes one wonder whether, indeed, our Reparatory Justice-craving politicians are mentally and psychologically prepared to put to effective and constructive use, any such substantial fiscal and/or capital resources ceded or availed them by the European descendants of the 400 years of Indigenous Chattel-Enslavement of the Ancestors of the present and the future generations of Continental Africans in the Americas and elsewhere spread across the globe.

I have said this before, over and over, ad-nauseam, that Ghanaian leaders routinely behave cluelessly and childishly as if they lived in The Prince Bubble Islands and were completely isolated from the reach and the purview or critical scrutiny of their diplomatic counterparts across the globe, sadly and scandalously forgetting that, indeed, ours is a veritable Global Village of Interactive mutuality, with legitimately accredited diplomatic representatives from all corners of the globe living in close proximity and virtually inextricably so with the rest of the Ghanaian people and the citizenry.

In his narrative about the apparently cold-calculated abandonment of the half-completed Asante-Barekese Municipal Hospital, MC Ishmael significantly highlights the stark contradiction between the effusive declarations of a “24-Hour Economy” fixated government that is also decidedly clueless about the remarkable number of jobs - ranging in the order of several thousands - that are apt to be created in the event of the completion and the full operation of the Atwima-North Municipal or General Hospital. And by the way, it is such scandalous acts of moral and political self-negation that actually makes any studious observer and critical thinker wonder why the 400 years of the mass uprootment and the Chattel Enslavement of our ancestors and their descendants, that is, our cousins and kinsfolk in the Americas, had not evidently been worse than it could actually and practically have been.

Naturally, the narrator of the videoclip on which this piece of national-development conversation is based, namely, MC Ishmael, also wondered why Ghanaian taxpayers should be obligated to foot the bills or debts for the cushy salaries and perks of such politicians and government appointees as the Asante Regional Minister and the dozens and the legions of District, Municipal and Metropolitan Chief Executives (MMDCEs), who clearly appear to have absolutely no significant role in the totality of the symphonic socioeconomic, cultural and the technological development of the country.

And on the present score or count, it is also significant for the Dear Reader to bear in mind the fact that on the present subject regarding the provision of qualitative and adequate healthcare services, we are talking about only one sector of the dozens of our national development sectors in which a more progressive and visionary leadership and government could have made a heck of a ginormous difference, if the requisite will and determination were not sorely lacking among the present generation of Ghanaian leaders, irrespective of ideological leaning or political party affiliation. God Bless Our Homeland Ghana, Indeed!

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
Professor Emeritus, Department of English
SUNY-Nassau Community College
Garden City, New York
E-mail: okoampaahoofekwame@gmail.com

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