Earlier today, Nana Aba Anamoah, media personality and the General Manager of GHOne TV and Starr 103.5 FM made a tweet that read:
“NDC peeps screaming #fixthecountry. Imagine if you had dealt with the low number of ICU beds alone at Korle-Bu. Imagine if you had ensured the availability of defibrillators at our major hospitals.
Imagine oooo. Just imagine.
You think we’d be here today?”
This has raised a lot of concerns. One of those to have added his voice is the National communications officer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Sammy Gyamfi.
In his reply, he made mention that no party in the history of the 4th Republic has done more than the NDC had done in the health sector.
“My dear Nana Aba Anamoah, I appreciate the concerns you have expressed in the attached tweet but respectfully disagree with you.
It is important to make the point that no government can solve all the problems or challenges confronting its people. So the issue is not the existence of problems or challenges per se, but the contribution of various governments to the solution of those problems is what matters.
The facts show that no party in the history of this 4th republic has done more than the NDC has done in the health sector.
Aside from the dozens of health infrastructure projects including a quaternary hospital, 4 regional hospitals, 3 institutional hospitals, 14 district hospitals, 18 health centres, 20 polyclinics, and over 2000 CHPS Compounds that were built across the length and breadth of the country, the Mahama administration rolled out the National Medical Equipment Replacement Programme under which US$264 million was invested in the provision of critical diagnostic and treatment equipment for over 150 hospitals nationwide. This included all teaching hospitals, all regional hospitals, 125 district hospitals, 14 health centres and 8 mobile clinics.
The equipment received by hospitals varied from MRI machines, CT scan, fluoroscopy machine, X-ray machine, oxygen plants, digital Mammography, just to mention a few.
Under this program, obsolete equipment and theatres we replaced and rehabilitated. For instance, at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, the Pediatric Surgery Theatre which remained closed for almost 8 years, the General Surgery Theatre and the Babies Unit were all refurbished and made operational.
All these were achieved with a relatively smaller resource envelope of just about GHc248 billion. Now, the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government has had access to a total resource envelope of over GHc350 billion in only 4 and years. The question we should ask them, is what do they have to show relative to investments in the health sector for this gargantuan and unprecedented resource envelope? They have nothing significant to show except consumption, profligacy and corruption. And that’s why they cannot show any hospitals or significant projects they have built or undertaken in the last 4 and half years in the health and other sectors of our lives.
Therefore in all fairness, you cannot blame the current challenges in our health sector on the NDC that left power about five (5) years ago. Have a nice day and continue doing the great job you are doing for mother Ghana.
NB: Now to my NDC comrades, let’s exhibit tolerance for criticisms and divergence and state our case with decorum. Thank you.”