President John Dramani Mahama has declared that distance and financial constraints must no longer prevent Ghanaians from accessing basic healthcare, as government takes its Free Primary Healthcare Programme directly to underserved communities across the country.
The President said 135 of the 150 deprived districts targeted under the programme had already been covered, with the remaining 15 expected to be onboarded by the end of the year.
He said the programme would subsequently be extended to all 261 districts by the end of 2028, making basic healthcare accessible to people regardless of where they lived.
President Mahama made the declaration Friday at a community engagement on the programme at the Fian Health Centre in the Daffiama-Bussie-Issa District of the Upper West Region.
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He said the initiative, launched earlier this year at Dodowa in the Greater Accra Region, was designed to remove the financial and geographical barriers that had kept many Ghanaians away from healthcare facilities.
The President said the free package covered CHPS compounds, health centres and polyclinics, where basic diagnosis and treatment, antenatal and postnatal services, and treatment of minor ailments such as malaria, typhoid and diarrhoea would be provided without payment.
Patients, he stressed, would not need National Health Insurance cards to access primary healthcare services, while medicines provided at that level would also be free.
President Mahama said the programme would also shift attention from treating diseases to preventing them through household visits, screening and early detection.
Health professionals, he said, would visit homes to screen residents, particularly for non-communicable diseases such as hypertension and diabetes.
He announced plans to establish health kiosks in communities and busy areas, including lorry stations, in collaboration with the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU).
The kiosks would provide basic outpatient services and be digitally linked to district hospitals to facilitate remote consultations and referrals.
The Minister of Health, Dr Kwabena Akando, said the programme was part of government's efforts to achieve universal health coverage.
"Healthcare must begin from the communities," he said, adding that health workers would screen people in homes, churches, mosques and villages.
The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service, Prof. Dr Samuel Kaba Akoriyea, said more than 54,000 households had been assessed and 12,016 home visits conducted within the first week of implementation.
In Daffiama-Bussie-Issa, he said, more than 5,749 households had been registered and over 590 home visits conducted since September 7.
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He cited the case of 87-year-old Benjamin Nkuri, who had reportedly gone 54 years without visiting a hospital because of financial and distance constraints, as a powerful illustration of the need to take healthcare directly to households.
From Naziru Alhassan, Fian
