As part of measures to Build Capacity and motivate health workers and provide additional capacity for service provision, the National Democratic Congress(NDC) has announced 26 key measures to be implemented if given the node in December Election.
According to Party Manifesto, the next NDC Government will:
1) Employ the backlog of qualified health professionals
2) Support health professionals with insurance to cushion them from unintended consequences of their practice
3) Support bilateral and other exchange programmes for our health personnel to expose them to best practices around the world
4) Institute a National Health Workers’ Day and establish an award scheme for deserving
5) Individual workers and best facilities (including private sector facilities) e. ensure safety and protection of health care workers and patients;
6) Establish a Professor Jacob Plange-Rhule Endowment Fund for medical and surgical specialists training
7) Initiate a plan to establish the Ghana College of Nurses and Midwives
8) Improve the skill-mix, numbers, and distribution and provide additional incentive packages for health professionals to work in underserved and unserved communities
9) Implement tax waivers in order to assist health workers to acquire means of transport to respond to emergency calls
10) Establish a housing scheme for health workers and provide residential facilities at all health facilities for health workers
11) Scale up the training of Physician Assistants and emergency physicians
12) Expand the National Ambulance Training School to produce more paramedical staff
13). Develop a comprehensive Public Health Emergency Preparedness Policy
14) Establish an oncology centre to serve the five (5) regions in the northern belt
15) Establish a National Imaging Reporting Centre (NIRC) to provide electronic reports for hospitals without radiologists
16) Construct Regional Hospitals in the six new regions, and the Western Region
17) Provide District Hospitals in districts where there is none
18) Establish two National Infectious Disease Centres
19) Adequately integrate psychiatric care supported with funds in regional hospitals where there is none
20) Develop the Pantang Mental Hospital into a first-class mental health facility
21) Develop strategies to reduce the cost of health care by promoting local production of pharmaceuticals, medical devices and diagnostic test kits
22) Empower the local pharmaceutical industry to produce more generics to feed the domestic drug market as we began while in office
23) Collaborate with Traditional Herbal Medicine Producers for rapid integration of herbal medicine in Ghana’s health system
24) Establish a Medical Laboratory Science Council
25) Redeploy the abandoned ‘Onua Dor’ Mobile Clinic Vans to take healthcare to the underserved and the hard-to-reach communities
26) Build and reintroduce the ‘Onipa Nua’ Hospital Ship to provide medical services to the inaccessible riverine and fishing communities along the Volta River.
Source: Mybrytfmonline/Kofi Atakora
