Stakeholders within the health and technology sectors on Tuesday begun a two –days dialogue to deliberate on innovative policies and programmes that would ensure quality healthcare delivery in order to achieve a Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
The dialogue dubbed “Elevating Healthcare; Improving Universal Health Coverage through Capacity Enhancement and Technology”, is also aimed at fostering collaboration among stakeholders in ensuring the provision of innovative sustainable healthcare solutions to enhance the acceleration of Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
The forum, organised by General Electric (GE) is being attended by Health leaders from GE, policy makers, academia, healthcare professionals across all specialities, decision makers, investors, as well as financial institutions.
Stakeholders are expected to hold discussions on key topics such as Structuring Innovative Healthcare Financing Solutions, Ghana’s vision for Universal Healthcare Coverage, the future of radiology with Artificial Intelligence (AI), and technology innovations and maternal health.
Addressing participants, Mr Farid Fezoua, the Chief Executive Officer of GE Africa said the continent faced a big health challenge, especially in reducing maternal and infant mortality, cost and waste in the health systems, which could only be addressed through strategic collaborations between stakeholders.
He noted that the rise of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, cancer, among others, coupled with rising demand for healthcare services and emerging economies had compelled governments to increasingly strategise to develop healthcare infrastructure to ensure improvement in the access and quality of healthcare systems.
He therefore called for empowerment of the human resource, especially healthcare professionals through advanced education, skills development in order to enhance their service delivery.
He commended Ghana for making progress towards achieving UHC through the various initiatives.
“I applaud Ghana for making progress towards UHC through initiatives such as the National Health Insurance Scheme to boost financial protection of its vulnerable population and the Community-based Health Planning and Services Strategy (CHPS) to deliver cost-effective and quality primary care services while also engaging the community in the planning and delivery of services”, he said.
Mr Alexander Abban, the Deputy Minister of Health in an address said government was putting in place policies that would ensure the people had easy access to healthcare.
He said the Ministry was reviewing the National Health Policy, adding that it was finalising a UHC roadmap that would serve as guidelines for action towards achieving UHC.
“These two documents will provide the policy direction and broad strategies for action towards achieving UHC, based on key determinants of health within a functional nationally integrated collaborative framework”, he said.
While commending GE for its numerous initiatives geared towards improving the healthcare system in Ghana, Mr Abban called on corporate organisations, the private sector, and NGOs to partner the Ministry and for that matter, the government in order to ensure its UHC vision by 2030.
He also urged all stakeholders within the health sector to improve on collaboration as well as re-commit their efforts towards strengthening of the health systems to facilitate multi-stakeholder engagements in order to achieve UHC and improve quality of life and a useful life expectancy for all.
