Opinions of Wednesday, 15 November 2023
Columnist: Anthony Obeng Afrane
Primary health care helps to increase access to health services, which is particularly important for people living in isolated or deprived communities who may not have the means to access basic healthcare.
Research has shown that access to primary health services is linked to better health outcomes and a reduction in mortalities.
Every moment is an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of those who need help. The greatest legacy you can leave behind is the number of lives that you were able to touch while alive. It is worthless, needless, and in fact, wicked to selfishly amass wealth while others suffer.
The greatest gift a government could give to people of hard-to-reach communities is accessible healthcare. Thankfully, under the administration of H.E. John Dramani Mahama, huge inroads were made in this direction.
Apart from the huge investments his government made towards the construction of Teaching Hospitals, Regional Hospitals, District Hospitals, Polyclinics, Health Centres and Institutional Hospitals such as the brand new 500-bed Military Hospital in the Ashanti Region, 130-bed Maritime Hospital in Tema and the 104-bed Police Hospital Expansion in Accra and many others, what gladdens my heart is the numerous Community- based Health Planning and Service Compounds (CHPS Compounds) built by his government.
It would be recalled that while in government, President Mahama and his appointees sacrificed 10 percent of their salaries for the construction of CHPS Compounds to benefit our rural poor. Out of these donations, and other sources of funding, 2,860 CHPS Compounds were built before he left office.
These CHPS Compounds Mahama built have features including a General OPD, Delivery Room, Consulting rooms, Nurses Station, Labour Ward, and accommodation for staff which could serve a community of about 5,000 people; this means that the total of 2,860 CHPS Compounds built by President Mahama will cater for about 14 million of our rural folks.
This absolutely defines the transformational leadership of JDM, and his second coming will no doubt benefit the good people of Ghana especially the rural poor.
Mahama is incredibly iridescent. He has no substitute for the 2024 presidential election!