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The Coronavirus epidemic is indeed life threatening but, on the flip side, it has helped nations of the world to discover their deficiencies.

Ghana has not been spared either from the sting of this Coronavirus as the country has recorded 1550 positive cases and 155 recovery cases with 11 deaths.

Though many Ghanaians have appreciated efforts by the Government of Ghana under the leadership of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to contain the virus resulting in a low positivity rate of 1.5 percent, the Coronavirus (COVID-19) has however exposed the country's healthcare system.

Addressing the nation in his 8th update on COVID-19, President Nana Akufo-Addo disclosed some deficiencies that need to be corrected in the health sector.

He noted that ''just as the virus has disrupted our daily lives, it has also exposed the deficiencies of our healthcare system, because of years of under-investment and neglect. Whilst maternal, new-born, adolescent health and nutrition remain our top priorities, we must pay increased attention to chronic, noncommunicable diseases such as heart diseases, diabetes and asthma, which have proved to be the common risk factors for the eleven (11) deaths we have recorded from the virus''.

He further outlined that the pandemic has also ''highlighted the need to address mental health issues, and the crucial role of emergency services, to which the new fleet of ambulances and drones are responding. We must emphasise preventive and promotive aspects of health, in addition to care for the sick. The virus has also revealed the unequal distribution of healthcare facilities, as we have tended to focus our infrastructure on Accra and one or two of our other big cities. But, as we have seen, epidemics and pandemics, when they emerge, can spread to any part of our country''.

Since it's not enough to look at the deficiencies without resolving them, the President, as a matter of urgency, will begin the construction of eighty-eight (88) district and six (6) Regional hospitals this year.

''There are eighty-eight (88) districts in our country without district hospitals; we have six (6) new regions without regional hospitals; we do not have 5 infectious disease control centres dotted across the country, and we do not have enough testing and isolation centres for diseases like COVD-19. We must do something urgently about this. That is why Government has decided to undertake a major investment in our healthcare infrastructure, the largest in our history. We will, this year, begin constructing eighty-eight (88) hospitals in the districts without hospitals. It will mean ten (10) in Ashanti, nine (9) in Volta, nine (9) in Central, eight (8) in Eastern, seven (7) in Greater Accra, seven (7) in Upper East, five (5) in Northern, five (5) in Oti, five (5) in Upper West, five (5) in Bono, four (4) in Western North, four (4) in Western, three (3) in Ahafo, three (3) in Savannah, two (2) in Bono East, and two (2) in North East Regions.

Each of them will be a quality, standard-design, one hundred bed hospital, with accommodation for doctors, nurses and other health workers, and the intention is to complete them within a year. We have also put in place plans for the construction of six (6) new regional hospitals in the six (6) new regions, and the rehabilitation of the EffiaNkwanta Hospital, in Sekondi, which is the regional hospital of the Western Region. We are going to beef up our existing laboratories and establish new ones across every region for testing. We will establish three (3) infectious disease control centres for each of the zones of our country, i.e. Coastal, Middle Belt and Northern, with the overall objective of setting up a Ghana Centre for Disease Control. The recent, tragic CSM outbreak, with over forty (40) deaths, has reaffirmed the need for ready access to such infectious disease control centres, even though, in our time, nobody should die of the disease'', President Akufo-Addo underscored.