The Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has revealed that government is moving full speed ahead with preparations to have telemedicine operational in Ghana by the end of 2023.
Dr Bawumia made the revelation during a speech at the opening of 50th-anniversary celebrations and Conference of the Medical and Dental Council in Accra on Monday, 29 August 2022.
The Vice President enumerated the NPP government’s achievements in healthcare since assuming office in 2017 including expanding access to healthcare, particularly to remote areas of the country, and investing in infrastructure and services.
Speaking on telemedicine, – the practice of electronically linking healthcare services throughout all government hospitals in the country to dramatically improve efficiency and quality of healthcare delivery – the Vice President said the process has started with some major regional hospitals but the plan is to have them all fully linked and networked by close of next year.
“We are also embarking on the network for all hospitals and clinics and chips compound. That is ongoing and we expect to make a very significant improvement by the end of next year where we expect over 2000 hospitals and clinics to be fully networked so that we don’t have to carry folders from one hospital to another. Currently, the regional and teaching hospitals have been networked and we are expecting that once this is done, this is when telemedicine will take its full place in Ghana,” Dr Bawumia said.
The Vice President touted the NPP government’s healthcare achievements regarding the use of medical drones and fully equipping the National Ambulance Service.
“As a government, we have taken a keen interest in improving upon access to health care in Ghana for the benefit of our people across the country,” Dr. Bawumia said.
“The National Ambulance Service is also fit for purpose now, with the delivery of One Constituency, One Ambulance. We have also seen the introduction of drones for the delivery of medical supplies and blood across the vast section of the country. We have six drone delivery centres in Ghana and we have two more to go, which will then cover the rest of the country.
“Currently, the six, each centre is delivering about 100 flights every day on average from each centre going to very remote areas of the country where they are dropping critical medicines and saving lives. That has made Ghana, our country, the largest medical drone delivery country in the world,” Dr. Bawumia added.
The Vice President touched on the National Health Insurance scheme and the recent announcement of the addition of childhood cancers to its coverage.
“Government is also improving on the efficiency of the operations of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and this has allowed the NHIS to expand the scope of its services to include childhood cancers, thereby removing the lack of money as a critical barrier to lifesaving healthcare services.” Dr Bawumia noted.
Source: theGhanaianVoice.Com