This bold financial commitment underscores Ghana’s push to improve access to quality healthcare across the country, especially in underserved areas.

Speaking at the commissioning of the CHAG-SafeCare Hub in Accra, Emma Ofori Agyemang, the Director of Policy, Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation (PPME) at the Ministry of Health, praised CHAG’s role in the healthcare system.

She acknowledged the association’s tireless efforts in maintaining high standards of healthcare delivery and bridging gaps in remote and hard-to-reach areas.

“CHAG has become a beacon of hope in our healthcare system. The government is proud to support this vision and ensure that no Ghanaian is left behind in accessing quality healthcare,” she said.

Madam Ofori Agyemang commended CHAG for undergoing a comprehensive quality assurance assessment across all its facilities, with 39 of them achieving the prestigious SafeCare Level 4 certification.

“It is actually refreshing to know that all CHAG facilities in Ghana have gone through the quality assurance assessment. I think that is very impressive and 39 of them are at Level 4. It’s very commendable,” she remarked.

SafeCare, an internationally recognised quality improvement framework, has been instrumental in raising healthcare standards in CHAG facilities.

The newly launched CHAG-SafeCare Hub, developed in collaboration with PharmAccess, aims to further enhance these efforts by serving as a centre for quality improvement, training, and research.

The hub will empower healthcare providers with the tools to deliver safer and higher-quality services.

“This new hub will further enhance CHAG’s capacity to deliver safe and quality healthcare services,” Mrs Ofori Agyemang stated, acknowledging the invaluable role of PharmAccess in supporting CHAG’s quality journey.

Despite these achievements, the PPME Director admitted there are still gaps in the quality of healthcare delivery across the country.

She emphasised the importance of a dedicated workforce, adherence to safety and quality protocols, and continuous supervision to maintain high standards.

“There are huge gaps in quality standards. These challenges require a dedicated workforce committed to patient satisfaction and constant improvement.

“I commend CHAG’s tireless workforce for their service in remote and hard-to-reach areas, and I urge you to protect the brand you’ve built – your brand is quality,” she urged.

The government’s financial support for CHAG reflects its recognition of the CHAG’s pivotal role in healthcare delivery.

In 2024, the Ministry of Health allocated GH¢1 billion toward CHAG compensation, and this will more than double in 2025.

“This year, we invested about GH¢1 billion towards CHAG compensation. Going forward in 2025, we have projected to invest GH¢2.2 billion in CHAG’s human resource, and out of this amount, I’m proud to say that over GH¢110 million is proposed for the recruitment of new staff,” Mrs Ofori Agyemang revealed.

She also praised CHAG’s leadership, including the Catholic Bishops’ Conference and the Ghana Pentecostal Council, for their steadfast commitment to making CHAG a reliable healthcare provider.

The commissioning of the CHAG-SafeCare Hub marks a milestone in CHAG’s journey toward universal health coverage.

By equipping healthcare providers with resources and ensuring accountability, CHAG and its partners are paving the way for safer, more effective healthcare services for millions of Ghanaians.

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This facility symbolises CHAG’s dedication to delivering patient-centred care while addressing critical gaps in healthcare safety and quality.

Serving over eight million Ghanaians annually through its network of health facilities, CHAG’s SafeCare Hub will function as a center for training, research, and promoting safe healthcare practices. The Hub aims to consolidate the organisation’s achievements under the SafeCare initiative and sustain improvements in healthcare delivery.

Speaking at the commissioning, the Executive Director of CHAG, Dr. Peter Yeboah, described the facility as a beacon of hope for healthcare improvement in Ghana.

“For many Ghanaians, healthcare is not just about access but safety and dignity. This hub is a bold step toward ensuring that every individual receives the care they deserve,” he said.

Dr. Yeboah reflected on the milestones achieved through the SafeCare initiative over the past five years.

“We have recorded a 91% improvement in the overall quality of care in all CHAG facilities. Gladly, 70% of CHAG facilities have transitioned from one level to another – from Level 1 to Level 4.

The Director of Policy, Planning, Monitoring, and Evaluation (PPME) at the Ministry of Health, Emma Ofori Agyemang, commended CHAG for its exceptional leadership in healthcare and assured government support for its operations. She revealed a substantial financial commitment to CHAG’s operations in 2025.

“CHAG has become a beacon of hope in our healthcare system. The government is proud to support this vision and ensure that no Ghanaian is left behind in accessing quality healthcare,” she stated.

She added, “It is refreshing to know that all CHAG facilities in Ghana have gone through the quality assurance assessment. I think that is very impressive, and 39 of them are at Level 4. This is very commendable.”

The CEO of PharmAccess, Dr. Nicole Spieker, highlighted the global importance of initiatives like SafeCare in addressing healthcare deficiencies.

“Globally, three million people die annually due to lack of access to care, while five million die because of poor-quality care. Ghana, through CHAG, is emerging as a leader on the continent in achieving universal health coverage,” she said.

On his part, the Auxiliary Bishop of Accra, Most Rev. John Kobina Louis, reaffirmed the Ghana Catholic Bishop Conference’s commitment to the SafeCare programme and the enduring partnership between the church and the state in healthcare delivery. Speaking at the commissioning of the CHAG-SafeCare Hub in Accra, Bishop Louis commended the initiative for its transformative impact on healthcare in underserved communities.

“As a founding member of CHAG, the Ghana Catholic Bishop Conference is proud to be part of the SafeCare journey and commend all efforts at bringing health and healing to the greatest number of people in our country, especially the unreached, the underserved, and the poorly served segment of the population,” he stated.

He also acknowledged the critical role of development partners, such as PharmAccess, in enhancing healthcare delivery.

“For our development partners such as PharmAccess, this joint SafeCare programme shows the value of collaboration and cooperation in promoting national and global health security. We remain grateful for demonstrating trust and confidence in CHAG,” Bishop Louis added.

In his concluding remarks, Bishop Louis urged CHAG leadership to prioritise professional excellence and innovation to strengthen the health sector.

“Finally, to the entire CHAG leadership, it’s our fervent hope that you’ll continue to uphold your stewardship role in maintaining this edifice and safeguard standards of professional excellence by conceptualizing innovative projects and programmes towards strengthening the CHAG network and the health sector as a whole,” he said.

The commissioning of the CHAG-SafeCare Hub marks a significant milestone in Ghana’s healthcare journey, reinforcing the commitment to quality care and collaboration in addressing the nation’s healthcare needs.

The Chairman of the Christian Council, Rt. Rev. Dr. Hilliard Dela Dogbe, emphasized the Christian community’s resolve to support sustainable healthcare delivery and praised CHAG’s achievements.

“The Church in Ghana has long been perceived as a leader in the provision of excellent healthcare. With the introduction of SafeCare, we now have a quality assurance program that elevates this perception by providing objective assessments, ratings, and benchmarks for our services.

“We cannot go back in providing quality assurance. The assessments and ratings are tools to ensure that we continue to give off our best. I trust and believe that none of the facilities that have reached Level 4 will want to drop to Level 3. Instead, all of us must aim to reach the pinnacle of Level 5 – or perhaps beyond that.”

He added, “This remarkable success reflects the unwavering support from church leadership and the Christian community. We are grateful to PharmAccess and other partners for their incredible support to CHAG.”

The Chairman of the occasion and the Board Chairman of the University of Ghana Medical Centre, Dr. Anarfi Asamoa-Baah, , described the commissioning of the SafeCare Hub as a landmark moment in Ghana’s healthcare journey and called on all stakeholders to support its vision.

For millions of Ghanaians, the SafeCare Hub represents more than a building – it is a symbol of hope, innovation, and a commitment to delivering healthcare that prioritises quality, safety, and dignity.

The nationwide engagement meeting of all healthcare facility management members forms a major step of the program’s Phase II project, “Developing viable business and operational models for sustainability and increased impact.”

Speaking at the forum to discuss with the facilities management members about the sustainable adoption approach CHAG is taking to own and continue the ISQua-accredited SafeCare international standards locally, the Executive Director of CHAG, Dr. Peter Yeboah, said that CHAG member facilities are now regarded as the game changers in quality-based healthcare delivery in Ghana.

Dr Peter Yeboah emphasized that it has been four years since CHAG embarked on the transformative journey of SafeCare Quality Improvement, with facilities witnessing a paradigm shift in the provision of healthcare to its patients.

“Barely 4 years ago, we signed onto a social contract with PharmAccess. CHAG has been known over the years as the sanctuary of health, hope, and healing, a safeguard of quality in the entire health system. But we’ve operated far too long on the perception level – the perceived quality of care. We’re trusted and respected, but in an era of evidence-based actions, we cannot thrive only on hope and faith. As vital as they are, we need to demonstrate that our service provision is backed by science, and therefore, SafeCare was introduced. We wanted a structured, stepwise scientific way of measuring and benchmarking, identifying gaps, and coming up with innovative ways to address the gaps identified to ensure quality,” he said.

Dr. Peter Yeboah indicated that CHAG’s pioneering leadership has inspired and motivated the Ghana Health Service, the largest public healthcare provider in Ghana to adopt SafeCare quality standards as the surest way to achieving universal health coverage.

He emphasized that quality, as demonstrated through SafeCare, is a value proposition for the entire health sector, which Ghana should boldly adopt and institutionalize for all healthcare providers and facilities.

“Twenty years ago, Ghana embraced the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). Thanks to CHAG’s pioneering role and innovative adoption of a community-based health insurance scheme, it was nationalized. Thankfully, we are now enjoying the benefits of the NHIS. Here we are today with another innovative program championed by a strong partnership between PharmAccess and CHAG.” Dr. Yeboah added.

Dr Peter Yeboah, who is also a health policy, planning, and financing expert, charged CHAG member facilities to promote and guard the quality standards attained while striving for further improvement and excellence on their SafeCare journey.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), about three million people die in the world annually from unsafe care. One in 10 patients is harmed in the process of seeking care, while an average of seven million people die in low- and middle-income countries from unsafe care.

This underscores the need for quality healthcare to reduce the preventable deaths recorded in the various health facilities due to poor service delivery.

It is in this light that PharmAccess Ghana, in partnership with CHAG, uses the SafeCare Standards to benchmark and improve the quality of care across its network of facilities. This collaboration aims to ensure that healthcare services provided at CHAG facilities meet international quality standards, thereby improving patient outcomes and overall healthcare delivery in Ghana.

In 2020, trained ISQua-accredited SafeCare assessors were deployed to support facility managers in over 330 CHAG hospitals and clinics nationwide in improving quality. They also conducted a series of assessments using the SafeCare standards to ensure quality service delivery. The outcomes have been impressive, with 91% of the facilities demonstrating improvement in their scores, which impacts the delivery of care in these facilities.

On his part, the Country Director for PharmAccess Ghana, Dr. Maxwell Antwi, revealed that the Ghana Health Service is gradually adopting, scaling up, and nationalizing SafeCare.

He indicated that “there is a collective anticipation of a future where the pursuit of quality healthcare is not a plea but an inherent aspect of the nation’s healthcare ethos. The journey toward quality healthcare for all is an ongoing endeavor, and these collaborative efforts are instrumental in forging a path toward a healthier and more resilient nation.”

Dr. Maxwell Antwi also said that SafeCare saves lives by improving health outcomes and reducing risks, and it improves the efficiency in the operations of healthcare facilities.

He added that some healthcare facility managers have adopted the SafeCare standards as a guide to run the operational systems of their hospitals and clinics.

Some facility managers, including administrators, who benefited from the program are excited about the quality outcomes. They commended CHAG and PharmAccess for rolling out SafeCare in Ghana.

An administrator from one of the facilities said, “For us, SafeCare is very helpful; everyone in this facility is committed to quality. We don’t have any other option than to be committed to quality care. If the client is happy that the services are safe and he or she is protected, we will have more clients and sustain the facility. Quality care minimizes complaints and even legal suits.”

Another administrator also said, “We have bolstered our team with strategic expertise to fortify our quality assurance measures. A dedicated risk manager now evaluates quality and provides invaluable guidance to our management. Additionally, we have enlisted the expertise of a seasoned physiotherapist and an adept equipment manager to oversee equipment management seamlessly. These strategic additions were prompted by meticulous assessments that pinpointed crucial gaps in our operations.”

The successful completion of the SafeCare Quality Improvement engagements by about two thousand CHAG facility managers marks a significant advancement in Ghana’s healthcare sector. The adherence to international quality standards will ultimately improve patient outcomes and reinforce Ghana’s journey towards achieving UHC by 2030. The commitment to continuous improvement and quality care will pave the way for a healthier and more buoyant nation.

SafeCare Director, Ghana, Bonifacia Benefo Agyei, emphasized the importance of ownership and commitment to continuous improvement.

According to her, the quality of healthcare delivery must be the key responsibility of healthcare facility managers.

She stated, ‘The full adoption of SafeCare standards by CHAG facilities marks a significant step towards achieving excellence in healthcare delivery. It is not just about reaching higher scores but also about fostering a culture of quality and accountability. Quality is the responsibility of those in authority. The ownership of quality is not from bottom to top. It must be from the top. The leadership for quality is from the top.”

Deputy Executive Director of CHAG, Dr James Duah further encouraged the facility owners to ensure a sustained, implementation, ownership, and institutionalized SafeCare. He advised all facilities to have quality managers whose job it shall be to ensure that the facilities operate and adhere to the highest quality standards.

“If you have the flexibility of co-opting members into your management structure, then your quality managers must be co-opted into management so that every management he/she will sit in it. Alternatively, make a management member responsible for quality.” Dr Duah noted.

It is time to make quality healthcare a key part of management strategies in healthcare delivery in Ghana.

He encouraged Ghanaians to continue to adhere to the COVID-19 protocol, stating that “there are still cases being recorded at the district level”. 

“Coming from the field, we witnessed positive cases being recorded. Among them were severe cases in the Central Region,” Dr Duah said in an interview on the CHAG’s COVID-19 response and institutional capacity-building (CRIB) project.

CRIB project

The project is helping to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 in 40 districts where CHAG facilities are the designated district hospitals.

With funding from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), CHAG has been complementing government’s COVID-19 response in 40 districts since July 2020. 

The CRIB project sought to support the national response to the COVID-19, build institutional capacity to support the continuation of basic healthcare service and also to monitor and evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on health service delivery while sharing lessons learned about implementing COVID-19 response measures.  

The 33-month project launched in 2020 also sought to support strengthening the country’s health systems to maintain the delivery of essential healthcare services and mobilising all available resources for quality COVID-19 response actions.  

The project provided over GH¢6.0million direct funding to the beneficiary facilities for various activities, including, ICU beds and PPE. Equipment, including ventilators, monitors, ICU beds, and PPE were all provided to the facilities.

While the first two years focused on 39 districts in 15 out of the 16 regions, where CHAG facilities are the designated district hospitals, the remaining months sought to improve vaccine uptake in four selected regions and improve vaccine rates and quality of health services to vulnerable groups, including women, girls, children and people living with disabilities (PWD).  

Capacity-building

Briefing the Daily Graphic on the report, Dr Duah explained that staff training and equipping facilities with logistics were an integral part of the CRIB project to strengthen health facilities to deliver essential services. 

He hinted that a total of 6,998 health staff benefited from a training programme on case management, screening & triaging, COVID-19 testing, contact tracing, risk communication and others.

Those trained, Dr Duah said, were from the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG), the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and quasi government facilities in 39 districts, where the CHAG implemented the CRIB project.

Partnerships

He said there was a wide multi-stakeholder involvement in planning and implementation through the District Health Executive (DHE) platforms, “a situation that deepened partnerships at the local level and elicited direct involvement of district directors of health services in the activities of CHAG facilities.

“The project addressed logistical and financial challenges by directly releasing funds, equipment and PPE in volume and value. 

“These supported the establishment of High Dependency Units (HDUs) that were hitherto not available in the CHAG nor the districts in which they were set up. There were also 40 isolation units that were set up,” Dr Duah added.

Case management 

The Deputy Executive Director said together with the COVID-19 testing that was extended to the district level, the project facilitated containment, case finding and case management. 

“These, together with the nearly 7,000 health professionals who were trained and the logistical supplies, allowed the beneficiary facilities to continuously provide health services to their communities,” Dr Duah stated.

That, he said, had, to some extent, shifted service utilisation closer to the people with outpatient utilisation increasing from 50 to 52.7 per cent at the sub-district level. 

“In no small way, the project contributed to reducing maternal mortality by nearly 58 per cent in two years,” he said and added that the facilities also improved in delivery of quality of health services evidenced by the increased average SafeCare rating from an average of level two at baseline to level three.