The administration led by Akufo-Addo is not abandoning health projects in the Ashanti region, according to regional minister Simon Osei-Mensah.
Speaking at a press conference on Monday, December 11, Osei-Mensah stated that the government has invested time and money to finish the projects that have been left to them.
The Regional Minister stated that at least 25 of the 32 health facilities will be put into service beginning next year, citing a few of the projects that were initiated by the previous Mahama administration.
“All along, people were saying that the government had abandoned hospital projects in the region but as I have shown you, none of them has been abandoned and most of them have been commissioned and are in use and the few ones that have not been commissioned are also 95% complete. So hopefully, by the end of the first quarter of 2024, those ones will have been completed,” the minister said.
The Regional Minister’s statement comes in the wake of intense criticism alleging that the government has not finished projects that the NDC government began.
Nonetheless, Osei-Mensah asserts that the administration is capable of achieving the goals set forth to operationalize those initiatives.
Dr. Emmanuel Tenkorang, the Ghana Health Service’s Ashanti Regional Director, added that Greater Kumasi’s facilities will eventually be transformed into specialty hospitals to relieve strain on the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital.
“When you go to the Greater Accra region, there are so many hospitals that when you have a crisis, you will go. But when you come to Kumasi, it is only Komfo Anokye, and it is a teaching hospital. So, you have to get primary care and secondary care before tertiary care.”
“But we don’t have that here, and so everybody is moving to Komfo Anokye, which is increasing the workload. Anytime you increase the workload, the quality of care will go down,” Dr Tenkorang said.
He added, “The strategy is that we need to have more of these hospitals to cushion Komfo Anokye. So, all the hospitals that will be opened, we will convert them into specialist hospitals to reduce the referrals that are going to Komfo Anokye”, he said.
