One of the main goals of President John Dramani Mahama is to transform the health sector and provide quality healthcare for all Ghanaians, the Deputy Minister for Health, Dr Grace Ayensu-Danquah, has said.
According to her, healthcare is very important to the President and the Ministry of Health is working diligently to achieve that vision.
The Deputy Health Minister noted the government is committed to retooling the existing healthcare facilities by providing more equipment to the CHPS compounds and health centres to reduce pressure on the major hospitals.
She maintained that the objective is to ensure that referrals are only made to the big hospitals when critical and the lower facilities do not have the requisite equipment.
“We’re really working diligently because healthcare is very important to President Mahama. I think one of his main goals is to make sure that Ghanaians are healthy.
As you heard him in the State of the Nation Address, he’s going to build. We’re going to retool all of our hospitals – when I say retool, that means that we’re going to buy equipment to retool the CHPS compounds, the health centers as well as the poly clinics so that our referrals will be less,” she emphasised.
The Deputy Health Minister made these remarks during a working tour of the Northern Region on Monday, March 2, 2026.
Dr Grace Ayensu-Danquah in a media interaction indicated the Mahama administration is shifting the paradigm to focus on prevention rather than the curative practice.
Consequently, the government intend to intensify community surveillance and deploy disease control mechanisms.
According to the Deputy Minister, about 43 percent of all mortalities in Ghana are related to non communicable diseases.
“We’ve also noticed that there are a lot of people with diabetes and high blood pressure, and that has led to about 43 per cent of all mortalities in Ghana is because of n on-communicable diseases,” she asserted.
As part of her working visit, the Deputy Health Minister engaged with the Northern Register Minister, heads of various departments at the Ghana Health Service and also visited the Northern Regional hospital, the Tamale central sub metro health center and the Tolon district hospital.
She seized the opportunity to interact with some of the medical doctors who have reported to duty in the region and implored them to encourage their colleagues to embrace the opportunity.
The Essikadu-Ketan Member of Parliament further urged the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives to ensure the doctors reporting to their areas are well settled.
The Northern Regional Minister, Ali Adolf John, for his part, expressed his commitment to support the health professionals posted to the region.
