Web Master
There is nothing as terrifying as having a nightmare and waking up to the reality that your worst fear was playing right before your eyes.
Initially, out of deference to my patriotic good friend, Seth Kwame Boateng of Multimedia who accidentally stumbled upon the tragic plight of pregnant women who died or sometimes lost their children during childbirth at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH), I had hesitated in my quest to warn against human scavengers who preyed on the back of victims for opportunistic public recognition. But out of duty to Ghana I must share my opinion.
No leader the people put in charge of ensuring their safety and wellbeing, and yet acts like an ostrich in the face of a national threat – only adopting a ‘fire-fighting’ approach when the problem gains media attention – deserves commendation for applying a small plaster on a cancer where a huge bandage is needed. Rather disappointingly, this is exactly what happened when the First Lady, Mrs. Rebecca Akufo-Addo, commissioned a refurbished 10-bed Mother and Baby Unit (MBU) at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital last week.
In an interview shortly after his KATH exposé, a still shocked Seth Kwame Boateng confessed that he was traumatised, having witnessed the heartrending experiences expectant mothers went through to deliver. Even though he was certain that far worse conditions existed elsewhere and not just at the KATH, Kwame said he feared what he might discover if he were to extend his investigations to other facilities in the other regions of Ghana.
One would have thought that where Kwame’s focus ended would have been where that of the government would begin. But no. Not the Akufo-Addo administration. They also decided to turn a blind eye to the worse atrocities pertaining elsewhere. After all, those were not in the media glare, were they?
The fact that we have decided to close our eyes so that we are spared from seeing the hundreds of mothers and babies who die incognito on a daily basis in other places, does not mean they resurrect from their grave, merely because we closed our eyes to their existence.
What this should have revealed to any sensitive government and journalists like Manasseh Awuni Azuri who were dancing themselves lame at the commissioning of the 10-bed KATH Mother and Baby Unit (MBU), as though a national problem had been addressed, was that nine times as many mothers and babies who died at KATH could be dying in the other regions of Ghana due to lack of access to hospitals and health care.
Now some simple questions:
Why wouldn’t any responsible government, if it were truly that, see the multimedia revelations about maternal mortality as an opportunity to holistically address Ghana’s healthcare problems, that statistics support have been on the mend under the NDC administration until the change of government? Why ignore the urgent health concerns in the other regions just because media attention and spotlight is not on them as it was at KATH? What happens to those voiceless mothers and babies who silently die and are buried because no one told their stories for the First Lady and the NPP government to provide some face-saving ‘carrion comfort?’ Why would the NPP administration not fashion out a national plan; or if there is none, why not follow the excellent blueprint laid by the previous NDC administration in the health sector?
And yes. No one can challenge the fact that in the 60 years since Ghana gained independence, no government, from Kwame Nkrumah’s government to the present one, has provided more health infrastructure in its FIRST FOUR YEARS OF OFFICE than the administration of HE John Dramani Mahama.
From the completion of Teaching Hospitals, including the 650-bed UGMC; Regional Hospitals, including the 420 Ridge Hospital and 386 bed Bolgatanga Hospital; District Hospitals including the 120-bed Dodowa Hospital; Institutional Hospitals, including the 130-bed Maritime Hospital; Health Centres and more than 1000 CHPS Compounds; with hundreds of other health facilities across the country at various stages of completion at the time of leaving office in 2016; it is clear that the administration of John Mahama was in a class of its own.
This is why it beggars belief that Manasseh Azure Awuni and a host of jaded journalists would join in the praise-singing razzmatazz greeting the establishment of a mere 10 bed Mother and Baby Unit block, while not showing a care about what becomes of a completed, first phase 650 bed specialist University of Ghana Medical Centre (UGMC), the first of its kind in the sub-region, with state-of-the-art facilities intended to provide care to the sick and teaching of health practitioners.
Meanwhile, the UGMC is also a world class facility envisaged to be a hospital of choice for medical tourism in the whole of Africa. But as unbelievable as it sounds, a Deputy Minister of Health recently justified, on the Citi FM morning show, why the NPP government was criminally allowing the ultra-modern UG Medical Centre to go waste because it claims it cannot raise $6million required to operationalise the $220 million hospital. This is where the inhumane hypocrisy of the Akufo-Addo administration is laid bare.
Since the NPP take over, there has been 2 annual budgetary allocations worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the Ministry of Health. Yet Government of Ghana insists it does not have, and cannot raise, $6million to run a John Mahama administration initiated project for the benefit of Ghanaians!
Unbelievable but true. Unfortunately, this is the Akufo-Addo way. It is the sad new reality Ghana must face going forward. This is a man who swindled Ghanaians to believe in his laughable axiom that he would protect the public purse. Apart from heedlessly appointing an African record 110 ministers who are sucking the life out of the public purse like the vampire Dracula, Akufo-Addo instead of matching the 2016 NDC budget of GHC453million ($100 million), multiplies this sum and allocates to his own Office a whopping amount of GHC1.5 billion (over $350 million) in 2017, and even increases the amount to GHC1.9 billion (over $400 million) in 2018!
In less than two years, the Office of the President alone has allocated for itself more than $750million. MORE THAN SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS with nothing to show. Yet Government of Ghana insists it does not have, and cannot raise, $6million to run a John Mahama administration initiated $218 million UGMC project for the benefit of Ghanaians!
Because of an elected President’s personal hatred for his predecessor, he would prefer that Ghanaians die rather than have them receive specialist care in the areas of Internal Medicine, Surgery, Paediatrics, Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Medical Imaging, Anaesthesia, Psychiatry, Cardiology, Family Medicine, Laboratory Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Rehabilitation & Sports Medicine, Pharmaceutical Services among others.
Why must an administration entrusted with the destiny of the nation show such open wickedness to Ghanaians when it comes to their health? And yet we have got weak-minded, fawning journalists to sing government praises for a 10 bed MBU at Komfo Anokye, when the presidency has certified the deaths of more Ghanaian citizens by choosing to engage in power play rather than get the facilities to operate.
Let me end my observation with a quote by an equally disappointed President Dr. Olusegun Obasanjo following change of government:
“What is called for, [in ruling a country] is love, commitment and interest in our country, not in self, friends and kinship alone but particularly love, compassion and interest in the poor, underprivileged and downtrodden. It is our human duty and responsibility so to do. Failure to do this will amount to a sin against God and a crime against humanity.”
Every life is important. Saving a mother and a child at KATH is good; but sentencing multiples of mothers and children to die in other places through deliberate inaction is unforgivable. Refusing to get the many hospitals operating because it was built by your political opponent is pure evil. The dead, the living and the unborn generations would not forgive the NPP administration if they allow selfish partisanship to get in the way of their sacred duty to the people of the Republic of Ghana. May our nightmare end soon.
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