Redefining Ghana’s healthcare system

 There has been calls on Corporate Ghana to emulate First Sky’s humanitarian gesture of initiating and implementing the ‘Free Dialysis Project”.

The Group’s initiative is a timely curative intervention and as calls have been made, it is appropriate to start a conversation on preventive health care in Ghana.

My experience with the health sector creates a vivid picture of Ghana as a country that prioritises curative health care as compared to preventive health care.

The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) also directly or indirectly supports this notion by its exclusion of Preventive Healthcare Services from the NHIS benefit package.

Just as both keywords “preventive” and “curative” denotes; preventive health care is an approach towards prevention of diseases through health screening, encouraging healthy lifestyles, focusing on family health histories as individual health behaviours, whereas curative health care is preparation towards curing and treating patients after diagnosis.

A careful attention to preventive health care at the community and national level will help fight issues, such as the no bed syndrome, shortage of oxygen and shortage of fuel for ambulances.

Corporate Ghana, if you find this call considerable, then it is time to join the Ghana Health Service, the Ministry of Health and the Media to start creating awareness on preventive health care.

The statement or slogan “Early detection saves lives” should not be limited to just October; it should be a daily call to start considering preventive health care as the way forward to redefine Ghana’s health system.

Ashorkor Amarh, Healthcare Marketer.
E-mail: ashorkor40@gmail.com