I will implement free primary health care in one year – Mahama

Politics of Sunday November 22, 2020

Source: Starr FM

2020-11-22

Former President John Mahama says he will implement his promised free primary health care within a year of taking office if he wins the December election.

According to him, the goal is to extend quality health care to all Ghanaians regardless of their financial situation.

The former president made the Pledge when he spoke at a community engagement in Agogo in the Ashanti region.

Below are the details of the NDC’s primary healthcare as outlined in their manifest

1. Free primary health care will be the largest social intervention in the Fourth Republic.

2. The Free Primary Health Care Plan will provide preventive health, health promotion interventions and curative care, and seeks to provide quality health care for all Ghanaians at no cost to the individual.

3. The free primary health care plan will be available at district hospitals, polyclinics, health centers, and community health planning services (CHPS) complexes to all Ghanaians regardless of their political affiliation, religion or tribe.

4. You will not need a National Health Insurance (NHIS) card to benefit from Free Primary Health Care.

5. The Free Primary Health Care Plan will minimize the overall cost of health care and increase healthy years and quality-adjusted life expectancy.

6. The policy will also ensure an appropriate skill mix to ensure accelerated economic growth; and reducing pressure on secondary, tertiary and quaternary health care facilities, including treatment of the dreaded “no-bed syndrome.”

7. Address health-seeking behaviors that are more curative than preventive.

8. The Free Primary Health Care Plan will mean a drastic reduction of the more than two (2) hours and a half of waiting, which overwhelms health workers, wastes the time of patients and their families.

9. Routine tests and check-ups for chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes, blood pressure, pulse rate, height, weight, temperature, oxygen saturation, etc. They can be done remotely at reputable local pharmacies or drug stores, as the case may be, for a fee. to be paid by the government.

10. The Free Primary Health Care policy will connect patients with medical laboratories, both public and private, that can perform other invasive tests using their mobile laboratory technicians.

11. With this enhanced health-seeking behavior, health professionals will detect and treat disease at an early stage. This early detection of diseases thanks to the Free Primary Health Care will reduce the medical complications that usually require hospital care.

12. Free primary health care will create jobs so that additional health human resources are hired, such as physician assistants, registered nurses, midwives, community health nurses, pharmacists, physicians and allied health workers and other health entrepreneurs in the private sector facilities to participate in the provision of free primary health care to Ghanaians.

13. The Free Primary Health Care Plan will improve the NHIS because it will pay for primary care, preventive and promotional health.