The Member of Parliament for Ayawaso West Wuogon, has noted that access to quality and affordable healthcare is a right and not a privilege.
In statement on The Floor to commemorate World Health Day which fell on 7th April, 2019, under the theme:”Universal Health Care (UHC)”, The MP, Lydia Seyram Alhassan explained that, “access is a means of creating a strong productive workforce, fit in the body and creative in the mind, well positioned to deliver a vibrant, resilient and progressive society”.
According to her, UHC is not just an issue of the health of citizens, “it is in fact a matter of the strength of the country, captured in the health of its people anchored in the quality of their thinking”.
The pursuit of UHC for all Ghanaians by 2020 by the Ministry of Health with the blessing of H.E Nana Akufo Addo is workable, possible and achievable, Madam Seyram hoped.
She made the point that, Ghana has made tremendous gains at achieving UHC since the inception of the 4th Republic.
In the 1990s, the concept of “Community Based Health Planning Services” (CHPS) was started as a pilot project to ensure that basic healthcare is brought close to the citizen, right at where the citizen is domiciled.
Prior to the CHPS project, the health delivery system that was at base, close to the citizen was the Health Centre. Some Health Centres served population of over 50,000 and were at a driving distance of close to an hour in some cases.
This she said, made healthcare inaccessible on most occasions and a challenge to bear even in cases where the facility is reached, due to the number of patients that had to be seen.
The MP discloses… “The World Bank in partnership with the Ministry of Health, the Ghana Health Service, and the National Health Insurance Authority is in the process of engineering an arrangement and that would ensure that every Ghanaian receives healthcare at the CHPS level with or without financial wherewithal.
In 1948, the World Health Organization (WHO) held the first World Assembly where it decided on April 7, to mark WHO’S founding and to use the day to draw worldwide attention to a subject of major importance to global health each year.
Story by Edzorna Francis Mensah
