Integrate health delivery system into assemblies - Local Govt committee advocates

The Local Government Committee of Parliament has called for the healthcare delivery system to be fully integrated into the local assembly system to give Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) the authority to extend support to health directorates at the local level.

The committee said it was only when the healthcare delivery, financing and management systems were fully decentralised that assemblies could significantly provide finances and resources to support quality health delivery at the local level.

Besides, it said that would also empower the assemblies to offer competitive incentives to attract health professionals to deprived communities.

“If the health directorates are well integrated into the district assembly concept through the decentralised system and they are in critical need of drugs or vaccines and other urgent needs, they can fall on the assemblies to provide because they are part of the assembly system and they can hire and fire health professionals,” the committee said.

Project inspection

The Ranking Member on the committee, Nii Lante Vanderpuye, made the call when some members of the committee inspected the progress of work on the construction of District Assemblies Common Fund (DACF) projects — a two-storey administration block and staff bungalows — for the Ahafo Regional Health Directorate at Hwediem last Thursday.

During the inspection, it emerged that personnel of the directorate had been operating from a rented apartment at Goaso, the regional capital, since January 2021.

The rent, which is being paid by the Ahafo Regional Coordinating Council (RCC) and the Asutifi District Assembly, is due to expire at the end of this year and it is uncertain where the next funds to renew the rent will come from.

Besides, the funds that were used to renovate the apartment prior to its occupation, were said to have been taken from the special fund of the Member of Parliament for Asutifi South, Mr Collins Dauda.

Decentralise

Mr Vanderpuye said under the Local Government Act (Act 633), various departments and agencies in the regions and districts were supposed to be fully decentralised into the local governance system.

He, however, said currently, the Ministry of Health and the Ghana Health Service had refused to be fully made an integral part of local assemblies.