By Yussif Ibrahim
Kumasi, Feb. 21, GNA – The Alliance for Reproductive Health Rights (ARHR) has organised a stakeholders’ dissemination workshop on the status of the implementation of Primary Health Care (PHC) in Kumasi.
The workshop, which provided a platform to discuss and share the PHC implementation in line with the 2022 national budget allocation for the health sector, was attended by representatives of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in the middle zone of the country.
The goal was to suggest effective recommendations on how best the government could improve on service delivery to citizens in the area of health.
Topics discussed at the meeting included PHC in Ghana: Policy context and implementation – a historic perspective, analysis of the 2022 national budget as well as media and community engagements.
Mr. Archibald Adams, Communications and Advocacy Manager, ARHR who led the discussions, said although budgetary allocations to the health sector kept increasing over the years, the government had still not been able to commit 15 per cent of the national budget to health.
He said careful analysis of the health budget also revealed that 51 per cent was dedicated to compensations and salaries, leaving inadequate funds to cater for goods and services.
Goods and services, however, received increased budgetary allocation in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he pointed out.
He underlined the need for CSOs to step up advocacy on increased budget allocation for goods and services to improve health outcomes.
On media and community engagements, Mr. Adams entreated CSOs in health to establish healthy relationships with media organisations to be able to reach out to the masses.
Participants raised concerns about how some media establishments were profit oriented and would not offer their platforms for public education free of charge.
Others are also owned by politicians whose focus is to push a certain agenda at the expense of critical health, social, economic and educational issues that impact the lives of the people.
They also admitted that the work of some CSOs were politically motivated and stressed the need to serve the interest of the people as independent organisations.
GNA