A member of the Health Committee in Parliament, Dr. Mark Kurt Nawane, has expressed disgust that uncompleted hospital projects have been left to rot under the Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party (NPP) government.
These projects, he said, could have come in very handy in the present anxiety about the Coronavirus and the debate whether the state has enough capacity to quarantine and monitor suspected patients were the need to arise.
Dr. Naawane lamented that while China is building a 1,000-bed capacity make-shift hospital to cater for patients of the current phenomenon, in Ghana works have been abandoned on many hospital projects.
The Member of Parliament for Nabdam expressed his disappointment while speaking on the Coronavirus on Wednesday in Parliament.
Many health facilities started by the John Mahama administration have been abandoned and have been overgrown with weeds over time.
Those that were completed and waiting for commissioning for use have had some of the installed equipment stolen including air-conditioners while the buildings themselves have deteriorated over time.
Some of the hospitals include the 120-bed Kumawu District Hospital and Adansi-Fomena District Hospital, the Euroget Six District Hospitals project each with 60-bed capacity at Tepa, Nsawkaw, Konongo, Madina, Salaga and Twifo Praso among many others.
The Nabdam legislator argued had these health facilities been completed the debate about Ghana’s capacity to evacuate her citizenry from China would have been in a very different subject.
According to him, the measures that China is taking and their challenges require the Ghana government to evaluate her emergency preparedness to be able to contain the infection should it sneak into the country.
He averred that the socio-economic status, cultural norms and religious practices such as Ghana’s suburban crowded settlements and the way the citizenry gather for religious worships demand the Ministry of Health to intensify its education process.
Resources from the contingency fund, he said, should be released to the local mass media to carry out intensive public education on virus and warned that the earlier it is started the better for Ghanaians.
