New regional hospitals will bring specialist care closer to Oti, Savannah and Western North – Health Ministry
The government says the construction of three 160-bed regional referral hospitals in the Oti, Savannah and Western North regions is intended to address gaps in access to specialised healthcare and reduce the need for residents to travel long distances for advanced medical treatment.
The Oti, Savannah, and Western North regions in Ghana are set to benefit from the construction of three new 160-bed regional referral hospitals, according to the Health Ministry. The government's aim is to ensure residents have closer access to specialized healthcare services and to lessen the necessity for long-distance travel to receive advanced medical treatment.
However, former Health Minister Dr Bernard Okoe Boye has raised concerns over the new projects. He questioned why the government is building new regional hospitals when several facilities from the previous administration's Agenda 111 programme remain unfinished. Dr Okoe Boye suggested that resources allocated for these new hospitals could instead be used to complete the delayed district hospital projects.
The Ministry of Health, however, maintains that the two initiatives are not mutually exclusive. They argue that the need for regional-level facilities persists, even as work continues on lower-level healthcare infrastructure. The Oti Regional Referral Hospital, in particular, is expected to provide secondary and tertiary healthcare services, thereby reducing the burden on residents to travel to Accra for specialized treatment.
The Ministry's spokesperson, Tony Goodman, explained that an assessment of healthcare needs in Oti led to the decision to add a regional hospital to the existing network of health facilities. "After the assessment, we realized that what would work properly, what would help them get that quality of care, is to add on a regional hospital so that you don’t travel from Oti to Accra," he stated on Citi FM.
The government is also investing in peripheral healthcare infrastructure, such as health posts and accommodation for District Health Management teams. This investment, Goodman noted, is not in contradiction to the regional hospital projects. He emphasized that the construction of a regional hospital in Oti aligns with a previous commitment made by the New Patriotic Party to provide such a facility for the region.
The previous administration had promised to build regional hospitals, but they fell short of their promise, he pointed out.
Written by urgent.news from MyJoyOnline Ghana's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
