President Nana Akufo Addo has announced government’s decision to construct 88 district hospitals across the country within the year to boost safe health care delivery.
And Out of these 88 district hospitals, 7 have been allocated to the Upper East Region.
The President was speaking in a televised speech on the fight against Covid-19 in Ghana since it’s outbreak.
“There are eighty-eight (88) districts in our country without district hospitals; we have six (6) new regions without regional hospitals; we do not have 5 infectious disease control centres dotted across the country; and we do not have enough testing and isolation centres for diseases like COVD-19. We must do something urgently about this. That is why Government has decided to undertake a major investment in our healthcare infrastructure, the largest in our history. We will, this year, begin constructing eighty-eight (88) hospitals in the districts without hospitals.
It will mean ten (10) in Ashanti, nine (9) in Volta, nine (9) in Central, eight (8) in Eastern, seven (7) in Greater Accra, seven (7) in Upper East, five (5) in Northern, five (5) in Oti, five (5) in Upper West, five (5) in Bono, four (4) in Western North, four (4) in Western, three (3) in Ahafo, three (3) in Savannah, two (2) in Bono East, and two (2) in North East Regions” he stated.
According to the President, “Each of them will be a quality, standard-design, one hundredbed hospital, with accommodation for doctors, nurses and other health workers, and the intention is to complete them within a year. We have also put in place plans for the construction of six (6) new regional hospitals in the six (6) new regions, and the rehabilitation of the EffiaNkwanta Hospital, in Sekondi, which is the regional hospital of the Western Region.
Indications have also been made that new laboratories will be built while existing ones in the country will be retooled and equipped for standard operations.
“We are going to beef up our existing laboratories, and establish new ones across every region for testing. We will establish three (3) infectious disease control centres for each of the zones of our country, i.e. Coastal, Middle Belt and Northern, with the overall objective of setting up a Ghana Centre for Disease Control” he indicated.
President Nana Akufo Addo however reiterated that,infectious diseases need ready access so that lives will not be lost hence, his government’s resolve to address the teething challenge. He described lives lost to CSM in Northern Ghana as tragic and regrettable which also needs rapid attention.
“The recent, tragic CSM outbreak, with over forty (40) deaths, has reaffirmed the need for ready access to such infectious disease control centres, even though, in our time, nobody should die of the disease” he noted.
Source:A1radioonline.com|Samuel Mbura|Ghana
