Gov’t working to complete all health projects in Ashanti – Dr Okoe-Boye

The government is working to complete all ongoing health projects in the Ashanti region. Dr Bernard Okoe-Boye, the Minister of Health, who stated this, said Ashanti region was currently benefiting from some ongoing health projects and all of them would be completed soon and follow through with construction of access roads linking these facilities to make them easily accessible. Dr Okoe-Boye, who was speaking at Suame as part of his three-day visit to the Ashanti region, discounted claims by some people that the region had not benefitted from development projects under the government. He said the region was privileged to have five, out of the twelve 40-bed capacity hospital projects, which began in 2020, under the Vamed project. 'Ashanti would have a total of 200 beds out of the 480 beds. And this shows how much the Ashanti Region has not been left out', he stated. Dr. Okoe-Boye explained that, the hospital projects were initiated by the government in 2020 where the Ministry of Health awarded the turnkey project to Messers Vamed Engineering at a contract sum of 71.5 million euros to construct 12 hospitals at Ahafo, eastern, Ashanti and Greater Accra regions. He said one of the 40 bed-capacity hospitals at Suame, which was a typical fit-for-purpose primary health facility, upon completion in September 2024, would help the people of Suame to access quality healthcare. The Minister noted that all these facilities were outside Agenda 111, adding that 'Agenda 111 is just coming to complement these facilities.' He pointed out that, although health insurance was good, health facilities must be closer to the people for the two (health insurance and health facilities) to work together. This way, he said Ghana could achieve a full universal health coverage by 2030. Source: Ghana News Agency