Mahama: Poor maintenance wasting millions in health investments

President John Dramani Mahama has admitted that Ghana has lost the full value of hundreds of millions of dollars invested in hospital equipment because of poor maintenance, announcing a new national system to prevent a repeat.

Speaking at the inauguration of a new catheterisation laboratory (Cath Lab) at the National Cardiothoracic Centre of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital on Thursday, the President said expensive medical equipment supplied to hospitals over the years had been allowed to deteriorate due to the absence of an effective maintenance regime.

Mr Mahama recalled that during the administration of the late President John Evans Atta Mills, when he served as Vice-President, government spent about $250 million to retool major regional and teaching hospitals with CT scanners, MRI machines, X-ray machines and other critical diagnostic

equipment.

However, he said much of that investment was later undermined because the equipment was not properly maintained.

"A few years after that, we found out that most of that equipment was not properly maintained and had broken down, and the hospitals were calling on the government again to do another retooling or replace the equipment. It is not a sustainable model," he said.

The President said the experience had exposed the urgent need for a maintenance culture to protect public investments and ensure hospitals continue to provide quality healthcare.

To address the problem, Mr Mahama announced that Cabinet had approved the establishment of Ghana Medical Equipment Services Limited, a subsidiary of the Ghana Medical Trust Fund.

The new company will deploy specialised biomedical engineers to oversee the installation, operation and maintenance of medical equipment nationwide.

It will also be responsible for replacing equipment that is damaged beyond repair, a move the President said would make future investments more sustainable.

"We believe that this will be a more sustainable model so that the investment Ghanaians have put in will not go to waste like in the past," he said.

Mr Mahama said the commissioning of the new Cath Lab at Korle Bu forms part of the government's efforts to strengthen specialised healthcare, particularly for heart disease and other non-communicable diseases, while reducing the need for Ghanaians to travel abroad for specialist treatment.