President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo will break grounds for the commencement of the Agenda 111 hospital project, today, Tuesday August 17, 2021 at Trede in the Ashanti Region.
The Minister of Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, on Sunday August 15, revealed that an amount of $100million has been budgeted for the Agenda 111 project to provide 88 hospitals across the country.
He unraveled that, the government has acquired 88 sites as part of the move to construct new hospitals, that the titles to the parcel of lands have also been secured.
In a presser at Accra on Sunday August 15, the Member of Parliament for Ofoase Ayirebi, Mr Oppong Nkrumah said; “The agenda 111 project which aims at providing 111 district hospitals will commence on Tuesday, 17 August 2021. The project will also see to the provision of two specialized hospitals, one for the middle belt, one for the northern belt. These are psychiatric hospitals and then the redevelopment of the Accra Psychiatric hospital”.
“There will also be the development of the six new regional hospitals and one extra regional hospital for the Western region. The district hospital project as you recall was first announced in April 2020 by President Akufo-Addo during his 8th Covid update to the nation. It is programmed to take between twelve months to complete each one from the point of commencement Since this announcement the project implementation committee chaired by Chief of Staff Madam Akosua Frema Osei Opare has been delivering a number of objectives”, the statement said
“One, to secure the physical location of 111 sites. Currently, they have secured 88 of those 111 sites. Not just securing the physical location but also securing title to the parcels of land. 88 out of 111 so far each of these parcels is about 15 acres”, the statement added.
“They have also been procuring the services of consultants. The master project itself has its consultant then for every one of the 111 sites, like it is done in every construction project you need the consultant and the contractors working on it, they have also been delivering on this. They have also been working to secure funding for it and commencement funding of $100million dollars has been made available to the project through the Ghana Infrastructure Investment Fund. For the project themselves, it is budgeted US$17million for each of the district hospitals, the district and specialized hospitals are being funded by the government of Ghana”, the statement read.
It will be recalled that, President Akufo-Addo in his eighth(8th) Covid-19 address to the nation last year announced the construction of hospitals in some 88 districts across the country.
“There are 88) districts in our country without district hospitals; we have six (6) new regions without regional hospitals; we do not have five infectious disease control centres dotted across the country; and we do not have enough testing and isolation centres for diseases like COVD-19. We must do something urgently about this. That is why Government has decided to undertake a major investment in our healthcare infrastructure, the largest in our history. We will, this year, begin constructing 88 hospitals in the districts without hospitals’.
President Akufo-Addo however, emphasized, the government’s plans of building regional hospitals in the six new regions to boost healthcare delivery in the country.
“Each of them will be a quality, standard-design, one hundred bed hospital, with accommodation for doctors, nurses and other health workers, and the intention is to complete them within a year. We have also put in place plans for the construction of six new regional hospitals in the six new regions, and the rehabilitation of the Effia Nkwanta Hospital, in Sekondi, which is the regional hospital of the Western Region.”
The Government calls on all, especially the local beneficiary communities, traditional leaders, youth and all actors in the local health sector to give their full support to this project for the benefit of the Ghanaian people.
