53,000 employed health workers has improve healthcare- Seyram Alhassa
10-04-2019Member of Parliament for the Ayawaso West Wuogon constituency, Lydia Seyram Alhassan has observed that the recent financial clearance by the Ministry of Finance for the employment of some 53,681 health workers has significantly contributed in addressing the staffing challenges that confronted the health sector.
This she said has significantly boosted healthcare delivery in the country.
She identified inadequate staffing and the lack of requisite machinery at the various Community-Based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) centres as the hurdles Ghana must scale in her quest to achieve universal care these do not ensure efficiency and full functions of the centres in the health delivery process.
Presenting her maiden a statement on the floor of Parliament on the World Health Day celebration since her election over two months ago, the MP who is a Member of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health pointed out that access to quality and affordable healthcare is a right and not a privilege.
She disclosed that “the World Bank in partnership with the Ministry of Health, the Ghana Health Service (GHS), and the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) is in the process of engineering an arrangement that would ensure healthcare at the various CHPS level with or without financial wherewithal”.
The new lawmaker stated that there are over 6,000 CHPS facilities in the country and noted that CHPS facilities, as the most decentralised form of healthcare delivery in the country, takes care of takes care of an average of 5,000 people.
Miss Seyram Alhassan commended Ghana’s tremendous gains at achieving Universal Health Care since the inception of the Fourth Republic.
’’Rt.Hon. Speaker, Ghana has made tremendous gains at achieving UHC since the inception of the 4th Republic. In the 1990s, the concept of “Community Based Health Planning Services” (CHPS) was started as a pilot project to ensure that basic healthcare is brought close to the citizen, right at where the citizen is domiciled.
Prior to the CHPS project, the health delivery system that was at base, close to the citizen was the Health Centre. Some Health Centres served population of over 50,000 and were at a driving distance of close to an hour in some cases” she stated.
The MP noted the achievement of universal health care by the year 2020 will be doable with the blessing of President Akufo Addo.
‘’The pursuit of UHC for all Ghanaians by 2020 by the Ministry of Health with the blessing of H.E Nana Akufo – Addo is workable, possible and achievable” he stated.
In a contribution to the statement, Member of Parliament for Ledzokuku Dr. Bernard Okoe Boye indicated that the public should be educated on Universal Health Care and the prevention of some diseases.
He urged the need for healthcare delivery in the country to be affordable in order to ensure that individuals with little financial resources can have access to healthcare.
Dr Okoe Boye advocated the need for some form of relief for patients with critical conditions who cannot afford quality healthcare at the hospitals.
He stating that Ghana must develop its health sector to a level that every individual above forty years can easily walk to a health facility and have a Computerised Tomography (CT) with any difficulty in access whiles urging Ghanaians to regularly visit health facilities for checkup and avoid the fear of high cost in health delivery
