A system is made up of various aspects of an organization working harmoniously together to bring a particular function. For a fictional health care system, we need to analyse the human resource, health financing, medicine and technology, leadership and governance, monitoring and evaluation indicators to measure the progress of health delivery, setting of target, and effective and efficient management of diseases. The public health sector has to also function effectively in order to prevent and disease and promote health. The most important questions to ask about the health care delivery system in Ghana are:
1 Do we have the requisite human resource based on service delivery?
- Do we have adequate medical equipment and gadget to manage diseases and emergencies when they occur?
- Do we have effective management and leadership that is in tandem with corporate governance and public administration?
- Do we have monitoring and evaluation framework upon which hospital reviews are done?
- Do stakeholders take an interest in the management of public health facilities in Ghana?
- Do we all as Ghanaians care to know how our doctors, nurses and paramedics are trained, and whether or not there is an ongoing capacity-building programme matching the current needs of clients?
- How is the commitment of central government to making sure health facilities are meeting the standard of modern day health care, resourcing health facilities?
- Should a health care manager be a clinician? Is it possible for the clinician to leave his or her clinical duties and be engaged in administrative work? Have we been honest in analysing and reviewing how we manage our facilities?
- Whose duty it is to make sure that the right things are done?
- When our leaders do not develop and build good health system and they are sick, do you expect them to come to such facilities?
These questions demand an answer and I charge all meaningful Ghanaians to ask these challenging questions about our health systems in Ghana. The truth of the matter is that the health care system in Ghana is not working, the systems are not well equipped to manage the conditions we have in our day and time, in terms of equipments that helps to resuscitate life, effective health communication systems to transmit information from a unit to units, no monitoring and evaluation framework, ineffective management and leadership challenge, not being able to manage the rich human resource we have as a nation. We must pay critical attention to the training centres in Ghana, where, doctors and nurses, and other paramedics are trained, who trains them? When they are on the clinical field, do they have adequate and the right clinicians to coach the students? Do we have ongoing mentoring and coaching on the job? These are the things we must all look into in moving forward. The minister of health, the health directors, health managers must sit up, the civil society groups must advocate for better health care, the media must have data and information in order to speak to issues of health and ask critical questions that will cause our leaders to sit up.
What is Your Take?
Rev. Jefferson Agbotro Kwasi
Founder& CEO,FOHA
www.fohaghana.org