By Adu Koranteng
The Member of Parliament for Dormaa East, Paul Apraku Twum Barimah has indicated that the commencement of the one hundred and one district hospitals, dubbed ‘ Agenda111’ by the Akufo Addo led government, would give a massive facelift to Ghana’s healthcare system and help provide quality health care for all Ghanaians.
The official commencement of the project will be marked today 17thAugust, 2021 with President, Akufo-Addo, observing the start of the first of the 111 health facilities at Trede in the Ashanti Region.
According to Paul Twum Barimah, in an interview with the New Crusading Guide, government’s Agenda 111 which aims at providing 111 district hospitals will also see to the provision of two specialised hospitals, one for the middle belt and one for the southern belt. These are psychiatric hospitals and then a redevelopment of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital.
It is estimated that each of the 111 district hospitals would cost approximately $17 million and should be completed 12 months from the respective dates of commencement.so far $100 million has been released for the commencement of the project.
The project is budgeted at nearly $17 million each of the district and specialised hospitals with funding from the Government of Ghana (GoG), with the construction of the six new regional hospitals under an Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) arrangement.
Paul Twum Barimah revealed that there are currently 88 districts in our country without district hospital. He noted that there are six (6) new regions without regional hospitals and there’re is an urgent need for new hospitals to cover these areas and more especially in this COVID era to save lives.
Paul Twum Barimah indicated that the project forms part of the government’s grand vision of improving healthcare delivery, delivery of Universal Health Coverage and quality health care in the country.
He said the construction of the 111 hospitals is expected to make Ghana a centre of medical excellence and a destination for medical tourism in West Africa. ‘The project is expected to deepen healthcare delivery at all district levels and ensure that the Ghanaian can access high quality health care at all district levels’, he said .
It will also provide thousands of jobs for the healthcare staff to be recruited and posted to all these 111 facilities as well as their ancillary workers in these communities.
The housing and local services associated with the projects were also expected to add a new layer to local economic activities to serve the local communities.
The President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, first announced the project in April 2020 during his eighth update on COVID-19.
Presenting the 2021 mid-year budget review in Parliament on Thursday, July 29, 2021, the Minister of Finance, Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, disclosed that the government had decided to execute the initiative in two phases, with the first phase being the processes completed.
The second phase, he said, was the actual construction of 88 district hospitals.
“Mr Speaker, the government and the project coordinating team have worked tirelessly on phase one, and I am happy to report that pre-contract works have now been completed for 88 sites for the district hospitals.
“We expect to commence phase two (construction to begin) three weeks from now, from 17th August, 2021,” the Finance Minister stated.
Mr Ofori-Atta said the government had already engaged over 20 local consulting firms through a lead project consultant to provide architectural and engineering designs as well as project management support towards the execution of the project.
