President John Dramani Mahama has unveiled a new strategy to tackle the persistent breakdown of medical equipment in public hospitals, announcing the establishment of the Ghana Medical Equipment Services Limited to ensure life-saving machines are properly maintained and replaced when necessary.
The new company, a subsidiary of the Ghana Medical Trust Fund, will be responsible for managing, servicing and overseeing the efficient use of medical equipment in major hospitals across the country.
He was speaking at the commissioning of the Ghana Medical Trust Fund Cardiac Catheterisation Laboratory at the National Cardiothoracic Centre of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital.
President Mahama said the initiative was born out of lessons from previous investments in the health sector that failed to deliver long-term value because of poor maintenance.
Recalling his time as Vice President under the late President John Evans Atta Mills, he said government invested heavily in equipping hospitals with modern diagnostic and treatment equipment.
“When I was Vice President to Professor Mills, we spent about $250 million to retool all the major regional and teaching hospitals in this country, provided CT scans, MRIs, X-rays and all the major equipment that was needed,” President Mahama said.
However, he noted that many of the machines became unusable within a few years because there was no structured system to maintain them.
“A few years after that, we found out that most of that equipment was not properly maintained and had broken down, and the hospitals were calling on governments again to do another retooling or replace their equipment,” he said.
Describing the situation as unsustainable, the President said government had decided to adopt a different approach.
“It is not a sustainable model. And so we’ve established a different model for this retooling that we’re doing,” he stated.
President Mahama announced that Cabinet had approved the establishment of the Ghana Medical Equipment Services Limited, which will operate under the Ghana Medical Trust Fund to provide a dedicated system for maintaining and managing medical equipment nationwide.
“And so Cabinet has approved the Ghana Medical Equipment Services Limited, which will be a subsidiary of the Ghana Medical Trust Fund,” he said.
According to the President, the company will be staffed by specialised biomedical engineers who will supervise the operation, servicing and maintenance of medical equipment to ensure it remains functional throughout its lifespan.
“These will be specialised biomedical engineers who will oversee and supervise the use and maintenance of the equipment,” he explained.
Beyond maintenance, the company will also be responsible for replacing equipment that has become obsolete or is damaged beyond repair.
“And it will be the vehicle; if the equipment is obsolete or is broken down beyond repair and has to be replaced, it’s the Ghana Medical Equipment Services Limited that will be responsible and be the vehicle for replacing the equipment,” he added.
President Mahama expressed confidence that the new arrangement would safeguard public investment in the health sector by ensuring medical equipment is properly maintained and remains available to support quality healthcare delivery.
“We believe that this will be a more sustainable level so that the investment the Ghanaian people are putting in will not just go to waste as it has done in the past,” he said.
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