Stakeholders laud call by SEND-Ghana for establishment of Public Health Emergency Fund

A member of Parliament’s Health Committee and Member of Parliament for Agotime-Ziope, Charles Agbeve has added his voice to calls by some CSOs for Ghana to establish a Public Health Emergency Fund to adequately deal with disease outbreaks.

The call which is being led by SEND-Ghana and Global Health Advocacy Incubator is intended to ensure adequate preparedness and response to disease outbreaks.

The call for the establishment of a Public Health Emergency Fund comes at the back of recent global disease outbreaks such as Monkey Pox, Ebola, and other equally deadly perennial outbreaks in Ghana such as Meningitis, Yellow Fever, Cholera and particularly, the deadly Covid-19 pandemic which exposed the gaps in the country’s public health systems.

Ghana may have responded to recent these disease outbreaks., However, in 2017, a WHO Joint External Evaluation (JEE) assessment of Ghana’s capacity to prevent, detect, and rapidly respond to public health risk shows that on a scale of 1 to 5, Ghana scored 2 in the technical area of national legislation, policy, and financing.

A recommendation from the (JEE) for the government to establish a Public Health Emergency Fund to improve the country’s prevention and response capacities is not yet implemented.

Experts have indicated that countries with low preparedness rating risk having ineffective responses to disease outbreaks and therefore putting pressure on their healthcare system during an outbreak, hence the call.

In an interview with EIB Network’s Faisel Abdul-Iddrisu, the Member of Parliament for Agotime-Ziope, Hon. Charles Agbeve who is a member of Parliament’s Health Committee, welcomed the call.

He said, “I am not surprised that the coalition is making this call towards the establisment of a Public Health Emergency Fund. Covid-19 did not only expose how weak our health system is but it was a awake call for us to actually sit up and prepare.”

“In fact, I recall very well, being a member of the health committee, we were calculating the number of oxygen cylinders we had in this country, the number of hospitals that could accomodate people who were sick with Covid-19 and so one could tell we were not prepared and so for me, the call is in the right direction,” he added.

When established, he believes the Public Health Emergency Fund would help address the public health infrastructure and logistical issues that currently confront Ghana’s Health Sector.

For the Ghana Coalition of NGOs in Health, the idea is laudable.

Victor Attah Ntumi, a Council Member of the Coalition however, called for broader consultation to ensure the realization of the call.

“I think that to advocate for an epicdemic preparedness fund is a laudable idea. But we should have what it takes to see how we can decouple this funds from the consolidated fund to ensure that this kind of fund serves its purpose,” Mr. Ntumi said.

He stressed that, “Covid-19 has taught us a lessons. We have a lot of infrastructure deficit, we have a lot of unpreparedness in the system, there are a lot of things we really need to do and for that reason it will be very prudent that we set up a fund, we could be able to develop these areas.”

Recently, SEND-Ghana held a stakeholder consultation involving the ministries of health and Finance, Ghana Health Service, academia, WHO, National Centre for Early Warning and Response Mechanism (NCCRM), COVID-19 Trust Fund, medical and nursing professional bodies, pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association, media and CSOs to discuss the proposal for the establishment of the PHEF, including its framework and make recommendations for the government’s consideration.

The government must act now to save lives during disease outbreaks.