When is medical treatment abroad stopping?

 I am yet to find an American or European government official travelling to any part of Af­rica for healthcare. However, the exact opposite is the case for political leaders in many African countries.

The question that quickly comes to mind is why this situation? The obvious answer is that enough investment had not been made in this sector over the years to create or de­velop more expertise in various fields in medicine.

Since childhood, I have heard of government officials, prom­inent members of society, etc. going abroad for medical care. Between my childhood and now is a lot of years which is enough time for serious effort to have been made, to change the state of our health delivery system so the requisite capacity can be developed to take care of our leaders, when they fall sick.

It is unacceptable that a nation like ours after 60 plus years of independence, can­not boast of a health system capable of taking care of our own people but has to depend on other countries to provide health services in most instanc­es for our leaders.

It is not for lack of personnel because Ghanaians are all over the world with a lot of highly qualified medical personnel in top class hospitals especially in America and Europe.

Our own Professor Frimpong Boateng, a world class heart surgeon, is an example. The issue, as with a lot of things in this country is a lack of focus which is a function of poor leadership.

I remember the elder brother of a friend, a medical doctor who goes to offer free services at a hospital whenever he comes to Ghana from Germa­ny on holidays. He used to complain of lack of equipment for carrying out certain proce­dures.

It is mind boggling why we cannot equip our medical facilities so that the top quality medical practitioners can come back home and help address the deficit of enough experts in the health sector.

There are some Ghanaians willing to come back to work after securing financial inde­pendence abroad, to as it were give back to society for what the nation has done for them in terms of their starting their education and ending in at least our secondary schools or high schools.

Pressure must be brought by all well-meaning Ghanaians to bear on our leaders to ensure that the necessary things in terms of experts, equipment, beds and whatever, is in place so our big men will not have to travel outside the country for treatment.

In fact, the time has come for us to demand that no gov­ernment official will be sent outside the country for treat­ment. This is the only way to force them to ensure that basic items like beds are not in short supply at our hospitals espe­cially emergency centres.

I was appalled at one of the leading hospitals in Accra where a medical personnel had to check something around the tummy of an emergen­cy patient and there was no screen to give her the required privacy. I was so shocked and angry that such a thing was happening in this country after 60 years of independence.

We should prioritise our needs as a nation. We cannot retain the best of medical personnel by refusing to pro­vide them with the requisite remuneration so they will be motivated to stay in the coun­try and give of their best to patients.

Medical skills are now a sought-after commodity and like soccer players if we do not pay them well, they will go outside to seek greener pas­tures and our health delivery like our local league, will be nothing to write home about. God bless.

NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNA­TIONAL AIRPORT’

By Laud Kissi-Mensah