Last month, in Accra, in front of an audience including many African luminaries, President Mahama called upon Africa to assume leadership for its healthcare.
In an eloquent speech, he called for “a fundamental shift away from dependence on donor support for health infrastructure. ” He added that “the outdated notion that health drains our economies must be rejected. In truth, health is the engine of our productivity and the engine of inclusive growth.”
He even cited a WHO study that said for every dollar invested in Healthcare, there is a four-dollar return. Listening to the speech, which till then sounded positively Nkrumahist, I said, “So far, so good”.
Then he praised Ramaphosa for COVID leadership, Ellen Johnson for Ebola leadership as well as Kagame, Kofi Annan, Obasanjo and Ruto for health leadership. There was no mention of President Bush who launched PEPFAR through which, together with the Global Fund, the US has spent 120 billion USD on HIV and saved 26 million lives, mostly in Africa.
And there was no mention of the West spending more US$ 157 billion to help Africa, not to mention bilateral assistance from US and EU. There is more but you get the picture.
Indeed, truth be told, President Mahama’s summit was necessitated by what the WHO Director, Tedros Gebreyjesus reported as “health aid projected to decline by up to 40% this year compared to 2 years ago.”
This decrease is due mainly to cuts in global health spending by the Trump administration. The summit would have been a good place and time to thank America for the generosity of past governments, starting with Bush and lasting through Biden.
As for the African leaders, the least said about them, the better. A quarter century after the Abuja declaration in which they committed to spending 15% of their budgets on health, most of them, including Ghana have not even reached 8%. Two decades after the Blair Africa Commission urged African governments to cancel health fees, most countries including Ghana still charge them.
A few years ago, we let a new mother with bleeding, as well as dialysis patients die because they couldn’t pay for fuel and dialysis supplies, while profligately building a Cathedral! Respectfully, talk is cheap. Nobody is preventing African governments from spending 15% of her budgets on Healthcare.
President Mahama deserves credit for uncapping the NHIS and initiating the Ghana Medical Trust fund but more needs to be done. Health is not just wealth and economics– it is also about Galamsey and forcing pregnant women and children to drink mercury-polluted water– it is about filth that pollutes our environment and leads to diseases– it is about bad roads leading to untimely deaths.
Mr. President, show action to back your words by halting Galamsey. It is a health emergency and a National crisis. End fuel payments as a condition for ambulance use and the payment of “poop tolls” for the poor before using public toilets.
Tackle sanitation with professionals, not just volunteers. Build good, safe roads. Improve public security so our countrymen will stop dying needlessly in Bawku and Bole.
Finally, you, Sir, could lead Africa to thank America for its generosity during HIV and Covid. Nominating President Bush for a Nobel Peace Prize for launching PEPFAR might remind America that we are a grateful Continent.
May God bless Africa and Ghana.
