The State of Health Care in Ghana

Abraham Maslow (1943) was very right when he developed his Theory of Human Motivation. In the base of his pyramid, he put basic needs and thereafter safety and protection need including health). What happens if you don�t get the base of anything? In order to achieve anything superior, we need a good basis. What happens when you get sick in Ghana? We need to restore our health care system. Some may argue that we already have a functioning system. Really? Do we see that? Well, I don�t. In hierarchical order, health care systems are divided into primary (Clinics, Polyclinics and District Hospitals), secondary (Regional Hospitals and General Teaching Hospitals) and Tertiary (Research Institutions and Specialized Medical Service Centre). Most of the people who need health care have to pass through Primary Health Care (PHC). In our beloved country, how many and which of these structures do we see in our communities? Do they meet the needs of all of us? And besides, the few available, do they have the necessary equipment and staff to man them? Do we know have an idea of how many people die from RIDICULOUS causes such as malaria and child-birth? Did you know that most of the work of PHC is actually to prevent disease? If we nip our health problems in the bud through prevention, we save ourselves the agony, money and time. Modernization of our health care system is very necessary. By this, I don�t mean we should by particle accelerators for the hospitals. It just means we should get them the things they use every day � for us! In our communities, we see a lot of cases of infectious diseases? How many hospitals can boast of microbiology labs? Any ways, do we know how many genetic related disorder we have in our system that could have been avoided through genetic counseling and other related technique at genetic labs? I guess we have one or a few that are all located in Accra. What about the tax payer in Tamale, or Takoradi or Ho? We need to create a computer network dedicated to our health system. It aids in information flow. The doctor in my village will be able to access the same information another one studies in Korle-Bu. A Clinic in Wa can send epidemiologic data quickly to a disease management unit in MOH in Accra. And all health workers can access information, protocols, etc. quickly on by few clicks. Ask your doctor how many things he has forgotten so since he entered medical school. We just held a census. How many are we now? 24 million. And we have 2000 doctors? Is there a problem here? A big one: it means a lot of our fellow Ghanaians get sick and the don�thave access to doctors. Why? Because we have failed to train enough of them. Period. We have four medical schools 54 years down the line! We don�t need John Hopkins style medical schools. We can�t afford them. We have good regional and district hospitals and even polyclinics that we can use to train doctors. As the next Cuban doctor that you see. We can select say 20 students from every region and train them in their regional hospitals. Wouldn�t that be good? We wouldn�t spend a lot of money doing this but we will graduate doctors this way. The last but the least is our patriotism. We need to developed ideas to solve our problems and then execute it to the end. If say the GHS designs a program to reduce morbimortality caused by high blood pressure by doing house to house enquiries, we must support them. We should be proud as Ghanaians but we need to show it by some way. I suggest we build ourselves a good health care system. We deserve it. Long live Ghana.