Ghana's health challenges and the way forward

Ghana over the years is experiencing an abrupt rise in human population.

The increase in the country’s population has got to a level that the existing facilities, amenities, executed policies and agenda can no longer correspond to the citizenry despite the outstanding and assiduous efforts made by our patriotic political leaders. But the question is “who is the cause of this unbearable condition that we find ourselves in?”

Individual citizens and the government are to be blamed. Loose immigration laws by the government, the pleasure of giving birth to many children as a way of ensuring social security, early marriage and child betrothal, the negative concept of polygamous marriages as a means of showing off one’s wealth especially in our local setups and the negligence of family planning policies among others have all contributed massively to the high population growth we are experiencing today.

This social menace has both positive and negative implications on our economy depending on the approach and steps taken to address it. I will like to state that Ghana is not the first country to experience a high population.

Many developed countries have gone through such social challenges and other are even still facing this same challenge but their economy is better off than what we are living in now. Why? They have put in place strategic and more advanced policies in place to utilize their high population effectively geared towards enhancing the development of their economy. These countries are now seeing an increased population as an increased human resource and a significant asset for economic development and progress.

One of the outstanding initiatives and plans that these “giant countries” put in place was to make their health sector very effective more than any other sector. Sir Winston Spencer-Churchill, a British statesman who served as the prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1940-1945 and again from 1951-1955, said, “Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have”.

It is quite unfortunate to mention that an economy like Ghana that is internationally recognized has driven its attention and resources to education, rural developments, sports and recreation, etc at the expense of the health sector of the economy. Unfortunately, that should have been the sector where critical look should be taken at.

With reference to Sir Winston Churchill’s quote, it is evident that any country’s development depends greatly on the health well being of its citizens and that is what we have refused to drive our resources towards.

How can an unhealthy citizen embark on academic, economic and political ambitions? Obviously impossible, hence the need to put our health sector in good shape and form so that we can consider the rising population as an asset rather than a liability.

The major challenges facing the health sector of Ghana today includes inadequate medical officers, high patient-doctor ratio, and inadequate health centres among others. As at the beginning of this year, there are about 79 district hospitals with no doctors, 82 districts without a hospital in the country.

The ratio of a doctor to patients stands around 1:10000. By World Health Organization standards, a doctor is to 5000 patients. How do we expect our human resource to be effectively and efficiently utilized if our doctors are put in such tight conditions? Recently, the doctor-patient ratio of Greece stands at 1:167, 1:200 in Austria, 1:250 in Italy, 1:333 in Britain, just to mention a few.

Therefore it’s not anything surprising that these countries are leading the world today in terms of Science and technology, education, trade and commerce and other aspects. Attention is given to the health well being of citizens than anything else. As the problem has already evolved, there is a need to find appropriate solutions to them.

The procedures involved The Ministry for Health, Ministry of Education and the authorities of the various medical schools in Ghana should dialogue and put in place more convenient procedures, requirements and standards so as to admit and train more professionals to help increase the number of medical doctors in this country.

With the existence of four major public medical schools, we should by now have a considerable number of doctors in the country. There can be slight reduction in cut off points required to be admitted into the available medical schools nationwide, granting scholarships to brilliant but needy students who have interest in the human biology program, etc as means of facilitating the interest of people in health care delivery.

The government as part of its quest to increase the number of doctors in the country can also support private medical schools to train more doctors to supplement the medical students in the government-owned medical schools.

One cannot fully talk about the causes of inadequate medical officers without talking about brain drain (the migration of educated or trained people from less economically advanced areas to more economically advanced areas to seek greener pastures) in the health sector.

There are thousands of Ghanaian medical doctors who are now practising in other advanced countries and making contributions towards the health well being of the human resource of these countries at the expense of their country. Every year dozens of doctors are recruited by international recruitment agencies to work in countries which are also understaffed.

But these medical doctors cannot be blamed. How do we expect them to work in a country where doctors are not given adequate incentives, remuneration, allowances, bonuses, etc amidst the stressful and wearisome service that they provide for the country? How do we expect citizens to be active to contribute their quota geared towards enhancing economic development if doctors are frequently going on strikes and hospitals are been closed down all because they have been denied the conditions of work and motivation that they deserve? Our doctors obviously have no other option than to migrate to countries where incentives, good salaries, allowances, etc are delivered duly.

The government should, therefore, give to our doctors the wages they deserve to motivate them and boost their morale to enable them to stay in the country to practice their profession. The Ghana government must also put in place legal instruments in the form of bonding of health workers for them to serve in the country for some considerable number of years before they can be allowed to migrate to other advanced countries.

Moreover, we cannot defend the fact that much trained health refuse to work in remote areas when they are been posted. Despite the fact that their profession demands a lot of commitment, love, care and passion for human lives, it will not be in interest of any worker to work in a locality with poor road networks, poor sanitation policies, insufficient electricity supply, absence of security measures and other relevant amenities that makes human existence more satisfying and comfortable.

Meanwhile, there are other medical doctors living in urban areas where there is availability of potable drinking water, continuous electricity supply, good road networks, proper sanitation policies, effective security measures, etc.

The doctor working in an area with these facilities and amenities available is highly motivated to give off his best in the profession in which he finds himself than the doctor who lives in a remote area where he has to walk for hours before getting to the hospital or clinic where he works. What therefore is the way forward?

What can be done to make these rural and remote areas lively for our medical doctors to develop the interest and accept posting into these areas? The government must ensure uniform distribution of the national cake so that social amenities will be available to all those deprived areas.

Since economic growth is a total responsibility, individuals, benevolent institutions and non-governmental organizations can also play a pivotal role by putting up health centers in deprived areas to enable members of that community enjoy quality health service delivery.

One helpful way that we can adapt to solve the enormous challenges in the health sector is to seek technical aid in form of advice from the countries that are advanced in terms of health-related issues. This will enable us to gain knowledge of how they were able to put their health sector in good shape so that we can go by those methods and procedures to tackle our health problems.

In conclusion, I fervently believe that the health challenges bothering Ghana today can be better solved if we all have it in mind that, “HEALTHY CITIZENS ARE THE GREATEST ASSET ANY COUNTRY CAN HAVE” as stated by Governor Winston Spencer-Churchill.

I also believe that this piece of writing will end up addressing this national issue to put Ghana’s health sector in good shape.

Thank you.