Ghana needs deep reflection on its medical system

This publication could not have come at a better time. Nevertheless, it really hurts me to come up with it, coinciding with our potential future President, Vice President Dr Mahammudu Bawumia, seeking medical care abroad. I fully support that he obtains the best medical assistance to speed up his recovery from his recent bout of illness. We cannot afford having him off the political scene for a second. His presence has always been, and will forever be, crucial.

However, I have always had aversion to our politicians seeking medical help abroad almost always and at their convenience. Their rushing abroad for such help at the crack of the finger whenever they have even ear infection as it was recently, but laughably, said to have been the case with the Nigerian President Mahamudu Buhari, irks me. It goes to suggest the bad state of our hospitals or the incompetence of our Ghanaian or African doctors hence the well-to-do or our politicians always sprinting abroad for the best medical attention.

Yes, and truly, like the Animal Farm story by George Orwell, some animals are more equal than others hence the attitude of our politicians neglecting the acquisition of better medical equipment for the nation’s hospitals. They know they can obtain better healthcare for themselves and their close family members by flying overseas whenever the occasion demands. This is shameful.

More is always required of the good person than the bad. Similarly, it is said, the good people do not last long but the bad. Subsequently, I shall request His Excellency the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, my modern day biblical Joseph, Moses or David, to look into providing our hospitals with the needed state of the art medical equipment and competent medical doctors able to care for not only the rich and our politicians but also, the poor, as best as each one’s health needs may require.

I know he is trying hard to do his best with the dearth of financial support available to him. He came to meet almost empty coffers with all the money embezzled or mismanaged by the most corrupt and exceedingly incompetent Mahama-administration ever had in the annals of Ghana’s politics. Yet, the onus falls on him to find solutions to the teeming economic, medical and technical needs of the country all in the absence of needed money.

I know, as competent, dedicated, dynamic and farsighted as the President is, God and rational Ghanaians will guide and support him to achieve more positives for the nation with any little money he lays hands on.

I shall strongly suggest to the President to consult President Magufuli of Tanzia who has taken the lead in transforming all the sectors of his country’s developmental needs to dumbfound the international community should he need advice on certain issues. He can take some cues from him in his relentless efforts to set Ghana free from the constraints intentionally brought to bear upon the nation through the infatuation with corruption by former President John Dramani Mahama and his “create, loot and share” brigade of cronies.

In wishing Vice President Dr Bawumia a speedy recovery from his illness, I shall seize this same opportunity to remind President Nana Akufo-Addo to beware the ides of March, although in his case, the 6th of March, not the 15th as it was to Julius Caesar.

Finally, more grease to the elbows of the First Lady, Mrs Rebecca Akufo-Addo, for the “Birth Mother Unity” (BMU) she mobilised public support and finance to construct at Okomfo Anokye Hospital in Kumasi in the Ashanti region for mothers. The speed at which she has realised her objective of helping mothers avoid death at childbirth overwhelms many a Ghanaian. I say, “Obaatanpa”, thank you to you on behalf of all discerning Ghanaians.