By Vice President and Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has outlined key interventions by the NPP government that he claims are transforming the health sector.
Speaking in Ejisu at the launch of TeleHealth, an application designed to provide remote medical consultations, Dr. Bawumia stated that over the past eight years, the government has prioritized these initiatives to address numerous challenges in the health sector that the Akufo-Addo administration inherited.
The Vice President emphasized that these eight interventions are playing a significant role in the transformation of Ghana’s healthcare system.
Below are the interventions Dr. Bawumia spoke about:
1. Restoration of Nursing Trainee Allowance
Dr. Bawumia said in every healthcare delivery system, personnel is important, hence it is important to prioritise support for personnel, and in the healthcare, trainee allowance.
“That is why we restored the nursing trainee allowance, which were cancelled by the NDC, so that they will be trained and come into the health system,” Dr. Bawumia said.
2. One Constituency One Ambulance
Dr. Bawumia lamented the poor state of the Ghana Ambulance Service with limited ambulances for the entire country.
“When we assumed office, there were only 37 active ambulances for the country, so we brought one constituency one ambulance. We now have 307 ambulances,” Dr. Bawumia said.
3. Revival of NHIS and covering more diseases
Dr. Bawumia said the New Patriotic Party inherited from former President Mahama, an almost collapsed National Health Insurance, with debts from unpaid claims.
However, he noted that since 2017, the government has revived it and made it even more reliable and better.
Dr. Bawumia added that the NHIS has been strengthened that it has now extended to cover sickle cell patients, children with cancers and now dialysis for kidney patients.
4. Agenda 111
Dr. Bawumia said in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic which stretched the nation’s health facilities, the idea of Agenda 111 was implemented, to build hospitals and newly created regions without district and regional hospitals.
Dr. Bawumia said, government is looking forward to employing over 70,000 health workers when all the facilities are completed.
5. Drone medical delivery
Certainly, one of the biggest medical interventions in the world is the delivery of essential drugs to remote areas through drones.
The drones, Dr. Bawumia said, make daily deliveries from 6 centres to over 2000 health centres across the country.
“This has helped to address the problem of not being able to send essential medical supply to remote areas in times of emergencies.” he said.
Remarkably, Dr. Bawumia revealed that all the centres are being manned by Ghanaians.
6. E-Health
“We realised that folders of patients in public hospitals were being missing, especially when they are transferred. So we decided to digitalised records of patients at all public hospitals, from teaching hospitals, to regional hospitals, polyclinics, etc.
“God willing, next year, we will add chip compounds,” Dr. Bawumia said.
“We have networked all these hospitals and they are speaking to each other. It doesn’t matter where you have been transferred from or transferred to, your records will be there in the system.””
7. E-Pharmacy
Dr. Bawumia recalled how in 2019, at the annual pharmaceutical conference in Ho, he told the pharmaceutical council about the E-Pharmacy. I said that we should converge all our pharmacies on one platform to make it easy for Ghanaians to buy on the platform without stress.
“We started it gradually and we now have E-Pharmacy platform with over 2000 pharmacies on it. This affords Ghanaians the easy option of buying drugs on the platform”
8. TeleHealth
Dr. Bawumia launched the TeleHealth application in Ejisu, Ashanti Region, on Monday.
Speaking at the launch, Dr. Bawumia said the application is to provide swift and remote access for health services to Ghanaians, without necessarily visiting the hospital to save time, resources and money.
“Some people go to the hospital and spend hours waiting just to see a doctor. Some people also don’t even have anyone to take them to a hospital so this TeleHealth will help a lot for those who are limited in a way.” he said.
