President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has promised to complete the ‘Agenda 111’ hospitals started by the government before the end of his term in office.
The project will provide 101 standard 100-bed district hospitals with accommodation for doctors and nurses in districts without district hospitals.
It will also see to the construction of regional hospitals for each of the six new regions including the rehabilitation of the Effie Nkwanta Hospital in the Western region, one new Regional hospital for the Western region and three Psychiatric hospitals for each of the three zones of the country; north, middle and coastal at an estimated cost of $1.765 billion.
Agenda 111 project is part of a plan by the Akufo-Addo administration to ensure that 101 outstanding districts are provided with hospitals in addition to the 10 selected regional and specialised hospitals.
It is expected to take 18 months to complete from the commencement of each unit, with and initial funding of $100 million from the government through the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund (GIIF).
Each of the hospitals will cost $16.88 million, with $12.88 million being used for the construction of the hospitals and $4 million for medical equipment.
Speaking at the 60th anniversary celebration of the University of Ghana Medical School (UGMS) in Accra on Friday, President Akufo-Addo indicated that “a great deal of the preparatory work for the execution of this ambitious project has been completed.”
“It is my determination that the entire project will be completed before I leave office on 7th January 2025”, President Akufo-Addo prayed.
Work on the projects stalled due to the effect of the corona virus infection, which affected government finances.
In August 2021, President Akufo-Addo cut sod in the Ashanti Region for the construction of the new hospital projects.
He believes the completion of the hospitals will help make Ghana a centre of medical excellence and a preferred destination for medical tourism in West Africa.
Over the last five years since he took office, President Akufo-Addo said his government has pursued policies in sector of national life to improve quality and placed the nation on the path of sustained development, progress and prosperity.
That, he said, was part of reasons the Ministry of Health recently launched Universal Health Coverage (UHC) roadmap.
The vision of the UHC roadmap is to guarantee good health for all people living in the country.
With this definition of UHC, the President said “every Ghanaian will have access to quality healthcare services without money being a barrier, with the National Health Insurance Scheme helping to realise this.”
He noted that ensuring access to services is not be limited geographical accessibility but also to timely access to healthcare services especially in the context of emergency care.
67 projects begin
About 67 of the hospitals under the Agenda 111 initiative are to commence by the end of March this year.
A manager at Hospital Infrastructure Group, the project managers for Agenda 111 hospitals, Kwabena Nyarko, gave an update on how the project is panning out as of February 9, 2022.
“We went through a tender process; the contractors have submitted their tender, and they are being evaluated. After this is done, we will run them through a value-for-money process and all the commercial arrangements will go through Parliament.
“We believe that hopefully by the end of March, we will have at least 67 of these sites that are working on the agenda 111 district hospital projects.
He noted that each hospital has a completion time of about 18 months, “and the 18 months is from when the project starts from a particular location.”
Mr. Nyarko also indicated that though they have identified 92 of the sites for commencement of work, land acquisition continues to be a major hindrance.
“There are other areas that as we speak, we still don’t have sites for them, and those are primarily in the Greater Accra Region. For example, in the Nima area, we need 15 acres. There are also some areas where we get the sites from the District assembly but face some issues with traditional authorities.”
“We are looking at some alternatives for places we are struggling to get sites,” he added.
According to Mr. Nyarko, government has paid 138 of the contractors the mobilization fee to begin work.
“The plan is to pay the contractors some mobilization. 10% of their contract sums will be paid as advanced mobilization. 139 of those have been paid. We are mobilizing to site.
“Some of them have actually started work. I have a list of at least 10 sites where work has actually started.”
