Hon. Kwaku Agyemang Manu, Ghana’s health minister, has cautioned health workers to desist from seeking reposting when they are placed in some hard-to-reach rural communities across the country.
The Minister said the practice must be discouraged as the president is working relentlessly to secure funds to bridge the health gap between rural and urban centres.
Revisiting an encounter with such persons, he said a parent of a prospective health worker who had recently been posted to a rural area came to his office to seek reposting for his ward.
However, upon realizing the motive of the parent he told him “the president is going to build hospitals across the country.”
Mr Agyeman-Manu decried, “the biggest challenge facing the ministry is the reluctance of prospective health workers to serve in facilities outside the big cities of Accra, Kumasi and to some extent Takoradi. This problem is further compounded by parents and relatives who come up with several stories hoping to effect changes after postings.”
He sternly cautioned “let serve notice…that this phenomenon will no longer be countenanced as the country stands the risk of losing out on the achievement of the much talked about universal health coverage…”
He made these remarks while speaking at the sod cutting ceremony at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, Tuesday August 11, 2020.
As part of efforts to reduce this menace, Health Minister Agyemang Manu has announced plans by the Akufo-Addo-led government to complete the construction of some 11 health facilities across the country.
He said these 11 do not form part of the Agenda 88 health facilities which the president promised in April 2020.
“We have come a long way in building our health care infrastructure through successive governments…the government’s deliberate program will see the completion of 11 health care facilities by the close of the year at the following locations within the country; Somanya, Wheta, Sawla-Tuna-Kalba, Buipe and Tolon, Bekwai district hospital will be completed, Tepa is about to be completed, Nsoko…Twifo Praso, Kumahu and Fomena…So all these projects Mr president you’ll have to commission them before elections, we’ll take you there…”
