We Need a Change in Mindset- Mahama

President-elect, John Dramani Mahama has asserted that a change in mindset will be the first step to quality education and health services in Ghana.

This was in criticism of the unsatisfactory services provided by critical state facilities like hospitals and schools as well as the decision by the outgoing government to build 111 health facilities.

In an interaction with some renowned clergymen at his office, he stated that there was a need to review the mindset for better management of such facilities.

“The Christian Health Association of Ghana hospitals and the mission hospitals are better run than the Ghana Health Service (GHS) hospitals but all of a sudden, we have another eighty-something hospitals for GHS to manage. What do you expect it’s going to happen?

“Government will put in all the equipment and gradually the equipment run down: X-ray is broken, MRI is broken down, this is broken down and then people still have to go to the private sector to go and get these same services so we need a change of mindset completely. It’s the same with schools.”

According to him, mission and private health and educational facilities must not be seen and treated as competitors but as partners.

Such partnerships, he said, could be handing over the management of state facilities to the missions.

“Everybody is clamouring to go to the mission schools now because they are better managed. Holy Child, Wesley Girls and all other schools and so how we expand our partnership with the missions in terms of management of some of these facilities instead of being in competition.

“We should rather be partnering with them. Sometimes we may be handing over public schools and hospitals to manage so that they can be managed better and reduce the burden that we have on the health services.”

Criticising the Agenda 111 project, he said most of them were sited in places where there are already functioning health facilities.

“Unfortunately, rolling out this Agenda 111, many places where there are government hospitals, the government has gone to plant new hospitals. Already the Ghana Health Service is over-burdened and they are not able to manage the hospitals well because we don’t have professional health administrators managing those hospitals.”

Source: opemsuo.com/Hajara Fuseini