Bawumia Launches ‘TeleHealth’ To Help Rural Areas; Lists 7 Top Gov’t Health Initiatives
The Vice President and Presidential Candidate of the NPP, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has highlighted major interventions of the NPP which are transforming the health sector.
Speaking in Ejisu at the launch of TeleHealth, an application which can be used to remotely seek medical attention, Dr. Bawumia said the government, over the past eight years, prioritized some key interventions to address the challenges in the health sector which, he noted, the Akufo-Addo government inherited from the Mahama administration.
Dr. Bawumia launched the TeleHealth application in Ejisu, Ashanti Region, on Monday.
He said the application will provide swift and remote access for health services to Ghanaians without necessarily visiting the hospital.
This, he affirmed, will save time, resources and money.
“Some people go to hospital and spend hours waiting just to see a doctor. Some people also don’t even have anyone to take them to hospital, so, this Telehealth will help a lot for those who are limited in a way.”
The Vice President, as part of government’s commitment to improving the economy, listed 7 transformative healthcare initiatives as follows:
1. Restoration of Nursing Trainee Allowance
Dr. Bawumia said in every healthcare delivery system, personnel is important, hence prioritizing support for the nurses by paying their allowances was very significant.
“That is why we restored the nursing trainee allowances which were cancelled by the NDC so that they will be trained and come into the health system”, Dr. Bawumia said.
2. One Constituency , One Ambulance
Dr. Bawumia lamented the poor state of the Ghana Ambulance Service with limited ambulances for the entire country.
He therefore recounted how under the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia administration, this problem was solved.
“When we assumed office, there were only 37 active ambulances for the country, so we brought ‘One Constituency, One Ambulance’. We now have 307 ambulances”, Dr. Bawumia said.
3. Revival of NHIS and covering more diseases
Dr. Bawumia said the NPP inherited from former President John Mahama an almost collapsed National Health Insurance Scheme which was saddled with debts.
However, he recalled, since 2017, the government has revived the scheme and made it more reliable and better.
Dr. Bawumia added that the NHIS has been strengthened that it has now been extended to cover sickle cell patients, children with cancers and dialysis for kidney patients.
4. Agenda 111
Dr. Bawumia said in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic the need for the “Agenda 111” initiative to build hospitals in the districts and Regions without hospitals.
Dr. Bawumia said, government is looking forward to employing over 70,000 health workers when all the facilties are completed.
5. Drone medical delivery
One of the biggest medical interventions in the world is the delivery of essential drugs to remote areas through drones.
The drones, Dr. Bawumia noted, make daily deliveries from 6 health centers to over 2000 centers across the country.
“This has helped to address the problem of not being able to send essential medical supply to remote areas in times of emergencies”, he remarked.
Dr. Bawumia revealed that all the centers are manned by Ghanaians.
6. E-Health
“We realized that folders of patients in public hospitals were being missing, especially when they are transferred. So, we decided to digitalized records of patients at all public hospitals from teaching hospitals to Regional hospitals, polyclinics, etc. God willing, next year, we will add chip compounds.”
“We have networked all these hospitals and they are speaking to each other. It doesn’t matter where you have been transferred from or transferred to, your records will be there in the system”, Dr. Bawumia said.
7. E-pharmacy
Dr. Bawumia recalled how in 2019 at the annual pharmaceutical conference in Ho, he told the Pharmaceutical Council about the e-pharmacy that “we should converge all our pharmacies on one platform to make it easy for Ghanaians to buy on the platform without stress”.
“We started it gradually and we now have e-pharmacy platform with over 2000 pharmacies on it. This affords Ghanaians the easy option of buying drugs on the platform”, he stressed.
Source: Ghmessenger.com
