Minister for Health, Honorable Kweku Agyeman Manu, has revealed that government had no option than to resort to middlemen in the quest to get vaccines for the country.
Speaking at a presser in Accra on the performance of the health sector, he indicated that a failed bilateral agreement between Ghana and Russia contributed to government resorting to middlemen.
Honorable Agyeman Manu said government’s first effort was to try to do bilateral engagement, but it yielded no significant results.
“We had to write to the foreign minister of Russia. We wrote to the trade minister of Russia trying to see how best they can facilitate how we could get bilateral engagements so we could buy Sputnik from the source, but all these didn’t yield any responses.
“We therefore had no option to try to engage middlemen so we can get the vaccines.”
Kweku Agyeman Manu
He however assured Ghanaians of government’s efforts to make provision for those awaiting the second vaccine jabs and those who are about taking the vaccine.
Touching on the performance of the health sector, Honorable Agyeman Manu, indicated there has been an improvement and significant performance in the country’s health system aside the COVID-19 fight.
The maternity and fertility sector, he said has improved significantly as the patient to midwife ration has improved.
The Health minister also mentioned that maternal mortality rate in the country has reduce drastically and maternal health service also improved despite the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated restrictions.
Also, he indicated that the doctor to patient ratio has also improved over the years adding that the nation will continue to support and offer training to enable the nation have more doctors in the health sector.
However, the challenge of inequity of the distribution of health professionals particularly doctors, he said, is being addressed.
We don’t owe health trainee allowances
Mr. Kweku Agyeman Manu further noted that the Ministry does not owe any health trainee allowance as all allowances have been paid duly.
He posited that government has ensured that all the students across the country have been duly paid their allowance.
“In the year 2020, the Government of Ghana paid an amount of Ghc173, 400,000 as the trainee allowance for 48,167 students in the health training institutions across the country for the 2019/2020 academic year.
“Let me announce that as we stand here, we do not owe health trainee allowance to anybody. Government has paid to all the health trainees across the country.”
Kweku Agyeman Manu
Health Minister on COVID fight performance
Honorable Agyeman Manu moreover said the sector has performed well in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. He said this in regards to the number of tests conducted, procurement of some items and the response amongst other activities.
However, he described the number of deaths as unfortunate but a better one as compared to other parts of the world.
“We can’t go anywhere without talking about COVID. Where we are now we can write a success story but we cannot celebrate yet because although we have done so well, we still don’t know when we are going to get another wave.
“If we conduct ourselves well that is wearing our mask, observing social distancing and continue to adhere to the protocols that we have been trained to a adhere to, I believe our numbers can even go down.”
Kweku Agyeman Manu
