Partner MahamaCares to transform healthcare delivery - Obuobia Darko-Opoku courts global financiers, diaspora
The Administrator of the Ghana Medical Trust Fund, MahamaCares, Adjoa Obuobia Darko-Opoku, has called on global financiers, corporate sponsors and the diaspora to partner with the fund in revolutionising specialised healthcare delivery in Ghana.
Speaking on the second day of the Ghana-UK Investment Summit in London, she stressed that the soaring burden of chronic non-communicable diseases (NCDs) was no longer just a health crisis, but a major threat to national development.
Blueprint for corporate action
The fund administrator pointed to a landmark $10 million partnership with the KGL Group, which she said, was being used to retool the Greater Accra Regional Hospital with advanced CT scanners, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and mammography units and fluoroscopy machines.
Ms Darko-Opoku urged investors to look beyond traditional asset classes and invest directly in human dignity.
"Today, I invite you to join us, partner with us to equip hospitals, train specialists so we can give hope to families battling chronic disease," she appealed.
She remained hopeful that diaspora investment would guarantee the fund's long-term sustainability, ensuring that critical healthcare financing outlived changing political administrations.
NCDs
Non-communicable diseases, she said, accounted for a staggering 43 per cent of all deaths in Ghana, frequently bankrupting families who were forced to liquidate lands and businesses just to buy a chance at survival.
The delegates at the summit
“Achieving the future we envision will require partnership and the government cannot do it alone”, she said.
Ms Darko-Opoku also revealed that data from a recent nationwide audit of public, regional and teaching hospitals exposed severe infrastructure deficits, showed that the entire public health sector operated with only two functional MRI machines, five mammogram units and two radiotherapy machines.
The shortage of specialised human capital, she said, was equally critical, highlighted by the fact that only two cardiologists were currently serving the entire northern sector of Ghana.
“This severe mismatch forces patients to endure agonisingly long travel distances and treatment delays, a reality the trust fund aims to dismantle through targeted investor capital”, Ms Darko-Opoku said.
Transformation blueprint
The fund’s strategy, Ms Darko-Opoku further pointed out offered a clear blueprint for investor involvement, built upon four distinct pillars designed to modernise healthcare delivery.
She emphasised that, the fund was expanding its direct patient support with a recently completed pilot programme that financed life-saving brain surgeries, heart procedures and cancer treatments for 50 critical patients.
Investments, she added, were also being funneled into infrastructure and equipment, anchored by the current construction of three state-of-the-art cardiology centres at the Korle Bu, Komfo Anokye and Tamale teaching hospitals.
The fund was tackling the brain drain through specialist workforce development, partnering with national medical colleges to train and deploy at least 10 specialists to every single region in Ghana in the coming years.
Similarly, Ms Darko-Opoku said, a dedicated medical research pillar was being set to fund local data collection and health innovation to ensure future policy decisions were backed by solid evidence.
