“We have all with one accord, contributed our widow’s mite, donated what little we can mobilize and shown care to the needy in our society,” the Presidential Candidate for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Ghana’s upcoming elections in December said.
He added, “We have rallied to a national call in ways that have not been seen in quite a while. Many are having to stay home, shut down their business, both big and small, despite the economic implications on the family and workforce.”
The former political leader decried reported imminent strike of healthcare professionals in the country owing to the lack of protective gear, saying “The unpleasant news of an imminent strike by health workers at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital because of the poor response to COVID-19 is most disturbing and the situation is not an isolated case.”
He continued, “Complaints of lack of PPEs and isolation facilities are coming from many health facilities across the country and it is important that steps are taken to identify areas of urgent need and supply the resources and logistics needed to build the confidence of our frontline health workers to battle this disease.”
According to the former Ghanaian leader, failure by the country to plan for pandemics was to blame for the challenges that health institutions in the country were grappling with in the fight against COVID-19.
“It is not a good thing that health workers, across the country, still, do not have personal protective equipment. This is obviously because we did not plan early as a country and our importation of test kits was also late. Also, the demand for test kits and PPEs have outstripped supply globally.”
Lauding the efforts of health workers in Ghana, former president Mahama said, “I am deeply touched by the enthusiasm and the sacrifice of our health workers.”
He called for a more proactive state of readiness to be put in place going forward, with the hope that “no longer must it be the case that dangerous diseases like Ebola, SARS, MERS or COVID-19 gets to our shores before we scramble around to arrest their impact.”
“These proposals are a part of our manifesto, which we intend to launch later in the year, when we have collectively defeated this pandemic,” he stated, adding that “It has become necessary now to make them public because of the current climate and in the hope that to the extent possible, they may be factored into ongoing efforts to combat COVID-19.”
Mahama says that key among lessons drawn from the COVID -19 episode is the fact that “we are not immune from pandemics that hitherto were deemed to be far removed from us. While we may have been spared outbreaks like Ebola, SARS, MERS and the like, we have been very much affected by COVID-19, which has proven extremely disruptive to our lives and holds the potential of having dire consequences for our economy.”
