Let’s enhance our development through quality health

One sector of national life that has tremendous direct and indirect influence on all other facets of human endeavour is health, for it is said that health is wealth.

Health, as defined, is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

Such a definition can, in all terms, be described as trite, but it seems that in our country it falls short of its intents and purposes because we have handled the basic essentials of healthcare with careless abandon.

This is because majority of the health problems for which we report at the various health institutions are due to our inability to prevent diseases.

That notwithstanding, we have allowed preventable conditions to lead to needless deaths and scooped away a chunk of national resources that could have been channelled into productive uses.

One key issue that came up at the 2014 health sector review was the fact that factors leading to the recurrence of preventable diseases such as cholera including poor sanitation, are beyond the scope of our health sector. 

In fact, the poor environmental conditions in which Ghanaians live, work and go to school have a major impact on their well-being. 

The poor air, water and soil quality in the country is mainly due to improper disposal of waste, emission of dangerous gases from industries and vehicles and smoke from the burning of waste and bush fires. 

In spite of this situation, the measures for controlling these problems have not been effective. Infrastructure for waste management has not kept pace with population growth. Only a third of the waste produced in the urban centres is collected, leaving the rest to pollute the environment. 

Access to potable water is also a problem. Less than half of the population of the country have access to potable water, leaving the rest to obtain water from streams and rivers, which are often contaminated with organic and inorganic substances from household and industrial pollutants.

A safe and healthy work environment is necessary for improved productivity. 

Currently, a good number of institutions have no occupational health and safety policy or guidelines to protect the health of their workers. 

Overall, the majority of diseases affecting Ghanaians are either avoidable or preventable using available health interventions. 

The high prevalence of these diseases, however, continues to bring direct, indirect and intangible financial and social hardships to individuals, families, employers and the nation as a whole. 

There is the need to re-think our notion of development which places undue emphasis on the generation of wealth.

The Daily Graphic wishes to admonish all Ghanaians that it is of no use amassing wealth only to be buffeted by a preventable disease that will end up dissipating that wealth.

We cannot work hard to earn some dividends only to allow insanitary conditions to erode our gains.