A total of 13 districts have not responded to government’s request to offer lands for the construction of hospitals across the country, health minister-designate Kwaku Agyeman-Manu disclosed on Wednesday.
Speaking at his vetting before the appointments committee of Parliament, Agyeman-Manu said government is still committed to realise President Akufo-Addo’s vision of constructing 88 hospitals.
In his eighth address to the nation on measures government is implementing to manage the COVID-19 pandemic, Akufo-Addo announced new 88 district hospitals will be constructed, especially in the six new regions.
“There are 88 districts in our country without district hospitals; we have six (6) new regions without regional hospitals; we do not have five infectious disease control centres dotted across the country; and we do not have enough testing and isolation centres for diseases like COVD-19. We must do something urgently about this. That is why Government has decided to undertake a major investment in our healthcare infrastructure, the largest in our history. We will, this year, begin constructing 88 hospitals in the districts without hospitals,” the president said.
Appearing before the 26-member committee, Agyeman-Manu said the finance ministry has offered assurance to make funds available for the new hospitals.
“It was the vision of the president to see those hospitals completed within the promised time so he set up a committee including all the key stakeholders and we started working. We asked all the district to give us land for the construction of the hospitals.
“As I speak, we still have about 13 districts that have not completed the exercise of giving us lands and site plan for the works to be done,” the ministerial nominee stated.
The standard 100 -bed facilities which will be in districts without hospitals will also have accommodation for staff.
Agenda 111
Meanwhile, government is to begin issuing letters to contractors for the construction of over 100 health facilities nationwide under the Agenda 111 project soon, a former deputy health minister, Dr Bernard Okoe Boye, disclosed.
Speaking on Asaase Radio’s Town Hall Talk show with Beatrice Adu, Boye revealed some of the contractors who have gone through rigorous assessment will soon be given the green light to commence work.
“As I speak, through the very hard work of this government, the President, the chief of staff, companies that were taken through rigorous processes at the Public Procurement Authority to see whether they had the capacity to handle the project have gone through all the processes,” he said.
Boye added: “And as we speak, in the coming few days, some might even [received] signals to come for award letters for the project to start, so we have gone through a lot of processes. There have been assessment, there have been evaluation, companies have submitted their proposals we have gone through PPA.”
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