President Nana Akufo-Addo has announced plans to construct 94 new hospitals across 88 districts and the six newly created regions as a legacy for the country in the fight against the novel coronavirus in Ghana.
Calling it as the largest health infrastructure project in the history of the country, the President said these new health facilities are intended to complement the existing ones and fortify the delivery of health services to individuals with various health challenges.
The President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo announced this in his 8th address to the nation on measures taken to combat the spread of the corona-virus in Ghana.
In the address, the president announced measures taken by his administration against the spread of the novel coronavirus, and admitted that the pandemic has exposed the deficiencies of the healthcare system because of years of “under-investment.”
“There are 88 districts in our country without district hospitals and we have six regions without regional hospitals. We do not have infectious disease control centres dotted across the country and we do not have enough disease testing and isolation centres for diseases like Covid-19”
The virus has also revealed the unequal distribution of healthcare facilities, as we have tended to focus our infrastructure on Accra and one or two of our other big cities.
But as we have seen, epidemics and pandemics, when they emerge, can spread to any part of our country”
According to him, the exigency of the times means the new hospitals’ construction is intended to be completed within a year.
“It will mean 10 in Ashanti, nine in Volta, nine in Central, eight in Eastern, seven in Greater Accra, seven in Upper East, five in Northern, five in Oti, five in Upper West, five in Bono, four in Western North, four in Western, three in Ahafo, three in Savannah, two in Bono East, and two in North East Regions.
“Each of them will be a quality, standard-design, one hundred bed hospitals, with accommodation for doctors, nurses, and other health workers, and the intention is to complete them within a year,” the President said.
President Nana Addo Danquah Akufo Addo further added that government will rehabilitate the Effia Nkwanta Hospital in Sekondi, which is the regional hospital of the Western Region.
“We are going to beef up our existing laboratories and establish new ones across every region for testing. We will establish three infectious disease control centers 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.”
Citing the tragic death of over 40 people in the recent CSM outbreak in the northern part of the country,
President Akufo-Addo stressed that this development has reaffirmed the need for ready access to infectious disease control centers.
