The 8th COVID-19 Address: A Case For The Abandoned Health Facility

The attention of our Platform has been drawn to a very commendable public pronouncement by the President of the Republic of Ghana, His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, to the effect that the current Government of Ghana was going to construct eighty-eight (88) District Hospitals, three (3) Emergency Response Centres in the three geographical zones and six (6) Regional Hospitals to be set up in the six (6) newly created regions to be completed within one year commencing this year 2020.

This assurance was part of his eighth (8th) radio and television address to the nation since the first case of the Coronavirus in the country. The intention of the Government has been occasioned which has been by the apparent inadequacies in the infrastructural needs of the health sector as exposed by the rampaging Coronavirus which is also referred to as Covid-19 has come as a relief to the people of Ghana.

However, we of this Platform want to draw the attention of the Government to the following: -

1. Article 35 Section 7 of the 1992 Constitution under the Directive Principle of State Policy states emphatically that "As far as practicable, a Government shall continue and execute projects and programmes commenced by the previous Government".

2. It is well known that this constitutional directive is not adhered to by one government after the other. It is our belief that the Coronavirus has taught us a lesson to henceforth go strictly by this directive. Uncompleted school projects, markets, hospitals, CHPS compounds, roads, electricity projects, water projects, housing projects, and many others the previous governments started with the taxpayers' money have been abandoned to rot while there is the urgent need to complete them for the benefit of the Ghanaian taxpayer.

3. In as-much-as we members of the Platform do not doubt the capacity and capability of the Government to fulfill this promise, we of the Platform wish to counsel President Akuffo Addo to use part of the funds earmarked for the numerous Health Facilities he intends to construct with effect from this year to be channeled first into the completion and commissioning of all the abandoned hospitals and other Health Facilities such as the Kumasi Regional Hospital, Tepa Hospital, Madina Hospital, Nsawkaw Hospital, Wa Hospital, Konongo Hospital, Salaga Hospital as well as the Military Hospital at Sawua in the Ashanti Region, Sekondi Metropolitan Hospital, Takoradi Metropolitan Hospital. Abetifi District Hospital, Garu District Hospital, Dodowa District Hospital among others.

4. The Government must complete, equip and commission them for our immediate use.

5. Finally, we implore the Government to disburse some of the funds to the various district, municipal and metropolitan Assemblies to complete the over four hundred (400) abandoned CHPS compounds scattered all over the country.

Issued by;

NANA KWAKU ASANTE-NKETIAH

GENERAL SECRETARY

HON. MOHAMMED KWAKU DOKU

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR