This is a piece I am sharing with as much authority as I can muster, because we have arrived at this point where we are either going to do something about the state of health care or we will all start pegging off needlessly simply because our politicians are helplessly looking elsewhere when the important matters of what will keep our society happy and working to fulfill us are brushed aside and bribed away.
I don’t care too much for the GFA saga and Nyantakyi woes. We could have and should have dissolved that Association when we set up the Dzamefe Commission and used it as a vehicle to promote adult children who came to shed tears and lie as they had never done before to protect their ill-gained dollars, stolen under our very noses on a flight to Brazil.
If you are not tired of all these scams by now, brace yourself as more to shock you is on the way.
When we fail to act and punish wrongdoing, this is the way we get paid by adults who cannot detect a scam until after they have polythene-bagged tens of thousands of dollars.
The wake-up call is now. We have a case to answer and it should not because an idiot describes us as a shithole country.
Dear Ghana:
DANGER!!!
#BedOrDead
#NoBedIsAGovtCrime
Under your refreshingly left-leaning Constitution,
- Every year, your President is required to report to Parliament on steps the government has taken to ensure the “RIGHT TO GOOD HEALTH CARE,” among others (Article 34(2));
- If you are employed, the state is to safeguard your “HEALTH, safety and welfare” (Article 36(10));
3. The state is to provide adequate sports facilities nationwide and promote sports “as a means of fostering… HEALTH” (Article 37(5));
4. The state is to abolish customary practices that “are injurious to the HEALTH… of the person” (Article 39(2)); and
5. Every child is to be “protected from engaging in work that constitutes a threat to his [or her] HEALTH” (Article 28(2)).
Indeed the protection or defence of “PUBLIC HEALTH” is so important that under certain circumstances, the Constitution says it is an accepted exception to the exercise of all our other fundamental human rights.
CitiFM, through Kojo Akoto Boateng and Bernard Avle, has been running stories on the sorry state of our healthcare system and facilities, particularly on the apparent abandonment of several uncompleted healthcare facilities dotted around the country. The much-touted NHIS has all but collapsed, not to speak of the recent audit report on the rot that has occurred there.
This morning #CitiCBS is running a story about a man who was taken to as many as SIX, yes, SIX hospitals in Accra only to be told that he could not be admitted because “there are no beds.” He died… in his car! A couple of days ago a friend’s mum was also treated to the same “no-bed syndrome” when all she needed was palliative care on her last days on this earth, this godforsaken patch of earth called Ghana. She died!! This “NO-BED SYNDROME”, just a PATHETIC JOKE, CRIMINAL EXCUSE and CRUEL EUPHEMISM for “OUR HEALTH SYSTEM SUCKS!”
Whenever you see a taxi or other vehicle with the lights on and horn honking, dashing through traffic it tells you that our health system has failed. Scratch that. Successive governments have failed Ghanaians.
IT IS TIME TO LET THE GOVERNMENT HEAR FROM YOU. We can start the fight right here on social media. I propose #BedOrDead and #NoBedIsAGovtCrime as our hashtags. Post your experience and views on our heathcare system on FB, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter, etc. Call in and speak on the radio stations. Tell the government that “ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.” If they can find money to buy government vehicles, they surely can find money and strategies to handle our health issues.
And it is time to start suing our health facilities. If a doctor/nurse/clinic/hospital fails, refuses or neglects to administer lifesaving care or delivers negligent care, sue the living daylights out of that bloody health facility.
#BedOrDead
#NoBedIsAGovtCrime
So that says it all. In the coming days and weeks we must move this agenda forward. Make our voices heard and push for better care and a better system.
The executives at the NHIA and the Medical and Dental Council should sit up and pay attention to us and our lives. We are in danger of creating monsters that idly collect salaries and travel the globe touting laws and institutions that yield nothing.
By Ace Ankomah