National Communications Officer for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Sammy Gyamfi, says the NDC should not be blamed for the inadequacies of the Ghana healthcare system, five years after it has left office.
According to him, the NDC, during its tenure of office, did so much more for the Ghana healthcare system in comparison to the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) government which tenure he says has been riddled with “consumption, profligacy and corruption.”
He said this in response to a Twitter post by GHOne’s General Manager and journalist, Nana Aba Anamoah, who said rather than NDC loyalists shouting #FixTheCountry, they should have attended to the issues in the healthcare system while they were still in office.
However, Mr Gyamfi, who responded to the tweet on Facebook, said: “It is important to make the point that no government can solve all the problems or challenges confronting its people. So the issue is not the existence of problems or challenges per se, but the contribution of various governments to the solution of those problems is what matters.
“The facts show that no party in the history of this 4th Republic has done more than the NDC has done in the health sector.”
He went on to list the achievements of the NDC in the health sector during its erstwhile administration, a feat he says the NPP government has failed to match.
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“Aside the dozens of health infrastructure projects including a quaternary hospital, four regional hospitals, three institutional hospitals, 14 district hospitals, 18 health centers, 20 polyclinics, and over 2,000 CHPS Compounds that were built across the length and breadth of the country, the Mahama administration rolled out the National Medical Equipment Replacement Programme under which US$264 million was invested in the provision of critical diagnostic and treatment equipment for over 150 hospitals nationwide.
“This included all teaching hospitals, all regional hospitals, 125 district hospitals, 14 health centers and eight mobile clinics.
“The equipment received by hospitals varied from MRI machines, CT scan, fluoroscopy machine, X-ray machine, oxygen plants, digital Mammography, just to mention a few.
“Under this programme, obsolete equipment and theatres we replaced and rehabilitated. For instance, at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, the Pediatric Surgery Theatre which remained closed for almost eight years, the General Surgery Theatre and the Babies Unit were all refurbished and made operational.”
He added that the Mahama-led administration was able to do all of these with just about GHc248 billion.
“Now, the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government has had access to a total resource envelope of over GHc350 billion. The question we should ask them, is what do they have to show relative to investments in the health sector for this gargantuan and unprecedented resource envelope?
“They have nothing significant to show except consumption, profligacy and corruption. And that’s why they cannot show any hospital or significant projects they have built or undertaken in the last four and half years in the health and other sectors of our lives.”
He said for these reasons, the NDC could not be blamed for the failures of the healthcare system which have been largely ignored by the Akufo-Addo-led government.
He further called on his NDC comrades to be decorous when responding to such comments.
“Now to my NDC comrades, let’s exhibit tolerance for criticisms and divergence and state our case with decorum,” he said.
Below is his Facebook post: