Promise to construct 88 district hospitals was a vision - Health Minister-designate

The Health Minister-designate Kwaku Agyemang-Manu has stated that the announcement by President Akufo-Addo to construct some 88 new district hospitals was a vision.

Responding to a question during his vetting on when the hospitals would start, he said it was a vision by the president which was supposed to have been translated into action.

President Nana Akufo-Addo in May 2020 announced that the construction of 88 new district hospitals across the country will commence in July this year.

To him, the project was expected to last for one year.

At a meeting with chiefs and elders from the Bolgatanga, Bongo, and Talensi-Nabdam areas of the Upper East Region usually referred to as BONABOTO, President Akufo-Addo said the project forms part of government’s plan to expand the country’s health infrastructure.

“We intend on Agenda 88; God willing everything will be okay for us to start in July. We are hoping that by the end of June, all the arrangements that need to be done might have been completed so that by the end of July, we begin it. I want to make sure that within a year, all of those projects will be complete,” he said.

But the Minister-designate said the President set a committee at the presidency to work on the projects and they wrote to District Assemblies for them to allocate lands where they wanted the hospitals to be constructed.

He said there are some 13 districts that were yet to do this and some of the districts who had completed their work have litigation matters. that are being settled.

Contracts he added have been awarded and sod-cutting would soon commence.

Serious work he noted has not started due to the covid-19 outbreak.

He said the cost ranges from $5 million to $ 8 million per hospital in a district.

He, however, clarified that the number has moved from 88 district hospitals to 111 hospitals that will include rehabilitation of other health facilities.