The Ranking Member on Parliament\u2019s Health Committee and Member of Parliament for Effiduase\/Asokore, Nana Ayew Afriyie, has criticised the government\u2019s decision to allocate GH\u20b51.2 billion annually to the proposed Free Primary Healthcare programme, describing it as a misplaced priority.<\/p>\n
His remarks on JoyNews follow a disclosure by the Minister for Health that the government will require at least GH\u20b51.2 billion each year to implement the initiative, which aims to expand access to basic healthcare services.<\/p>\n
Dr Ayew Afriyie argued that Ghana already has a foundation of community-based healthcare systems, including Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) compounds and community health workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho doesn\u2019t know about dietary plans? Who doesn\u2019t know about promotive healthcare? There are community health workers or auxiliary nurses who go as volunteers, educating people all the while,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He further criticised the condition of some existing district hospitals, noting that many operate from outdated colonial-era structures or repurposed CHPS facilities.<\/p>\n
According to him, rather than committing significant resources to a new primary healthcare initiative, the government should prioritise completing hospital projects under the Agenda 111 programme.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe most important thing is that every place has a CHPS compound. Every place has a health centre. What they lack is state-of-the-art district hospitals. You think through by making sure that at least Agenda 111 projects are ongoing. You cannot complete all of them now. Rearrange them in a manner that in the next 10 years, we can complete them,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve invested almost $4.7 billion in it, and you\u2019ve not touched it. You are now going to invest $1.2 billion a year into primary health care,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n
Dr Ayew Afriyie maintained that while improving primary healthcare remains important, the government must adopt a balanced and realistic investment approach that prioritises completing existing infrastructure projects.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Ranking Member on Parliament\u2019s Health Committee and Member of Parliament for Effiduase\/Asokore, Nana Ayew Afriyie, has criticised the government\u2019s decision to allocate GH\u20b51.2 billion annually to the proposed Free Primary Healthcare programme, describing it as a misplaced priority. His remarks on JoyNews follow a disclosure by the Minister for Health that the government will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123457,"featured_media":16585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[4591,2096],"class_list":["post-16584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-dr-ayew-afriyie","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/123457"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16584"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16586,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16584\/revisions\/16586"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fishfmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}