Former President John Dramani Mahama says those who criticised him for investing heavily in health infrastructure during his tenure were people who were uninformed.
President Nana Akufo-Addo’s announcement of the construction of 94 hospitals across the country has invoked debate about the government’s investment in the sector amidst abandoned projects prior to the COVID-19 outbreak.
According to President Akufo-Addo, the pandemic has exposed the weakness in the country’s health system following years of under-investment.
But the former President and flagbearer of the opposition National Democratic Congress during one of his digital conversations last night said critics of his healthcare interventions were misguided.
“The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ghana has also provoked quite a useful debate for the need for a more robust and effective health system. It has become obvious that the system must not only be responsive to the immediate and longterm health needs of our people but also withstand emerging global public health challenges such as this novel infectious disease we are facing.”
“It has been widely acknowledged that some of the critical investments that we [NDC administration] made in the health sector has been extremely useful and enabled Ghana to lessen the impact of this pandemic on our people and our nation. This acknowledgement bears out the vision and clear thinking that went into the massive investments we made in the health sector. There were uninformed and snipped remarks at the time with some questioning why many facilities were constructed. We were aware however that these investments were necessary to modernise a very fragile and weak health system,” he said.
Complete abandoned hospitals instead of building new ones – Akandoh
The Ranking Member on Parliament’s Health Committee, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh had earlier urged the government to focus on completing abandoned hospital projects dotted across the country instead of starting new ones.
According to him, such an approach is feasible compared to the promise of completing over 90 hospital projects in a year with a non-existent source of funds.