Families are still selling homes, disposing of property, borrowing heavily and exhausting their life savings to pay for specialised medical treatment, Administrator of the Ghana Medical Trust Fund (GMTF), Adjoa Obuobia Darko-Opoku, has disclosed.

She said the sacrifices being made by families show that Ghana cannot afford to become complacent despite progress in specialised healthcare financing.

“There are still patients waiting. There are still hospitals without critical equipment. There are still regions without sufficient specialists. There are still families selling property, borrowing money and exhausting their savings to keep loved ones alive,” she said.

Ms Darko-Opoku was speaking at “One Year On – An Evening of Reflection”, organised by the GMTF to mark its first year of operations and engage specialist doctors, medical directors and other stakeholders on the future of specialised healthcare in Ghana.

She said the Fund’s first year had demonstrated both its potential and the scale of the challenge confronting the country.

According to her, the experience had also shown that simply paying patients’ medical bills would not be enough to address the country’s specialised healthcare needs.

“If we pay for a patient’s treatment but the hospital does not have the equipment, the infrastructure or the specialist to provide that treatment, then we have not solved the problem,” she said.

The Fund has therefore adopted a broader approach focused on four areas: financial support for eligible patients, medical equipment and infrastructure, specialist training and human-capacity development, and research and innovation in non-communicable diseases.

One of its major interventions is the development of a US$10 million diagnostic and imaging centre at the Greater Accra Regional Hospital in collaboration with KGL Group.

The centre is expected to provide advanced CT, MRI, mammography and fluoroscopy services to improve Ghana’s diagnostic capacity.

The GMTF is also supporting the expansion of cardiology services at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital and Tamale Teaching Hospital as part of efforts to decentralise specialised healthcare.

These interventions complement the restoration of the Cardiac Catheterisation Laboratory at the National Cardiothoracic Centre, Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, following the fire that disrupted services there.

Ms Darko-Opoku said a key objective of the Fund was to reduce the concentration of specialised healthcare in Accra and Kumasi.

“A patient in Tamale should not automatically have to travel to Accra to access life-saving specialised treatment,” she said.

She said the GMTF was committed to building a system where geography and financial circumstances would no longer determine access to specialised care.

The Fund began its patient-support programme with a 50-patient pilot across the country to test its referral, clinical verification, claims processing and payment systems before scaling up.

The pilot covered patients requiring cardiovascular interventions, cancer treatment and other complex specialised procedures.

Ms Darko-Opoku said the pilot had provided important lessons that were now informing the programme's expansion.

She also acknowledged challenges with the GMTF Care digital platform, including technical adjustments and areas requiring refinement, but said the system was now operational and being strengthened.

Another major concern, she said, was the uneven distribution of specialist doctors across the country.

“Our long-term objective is not simply to count how many specialists Ghana has. It is to ask: Where are they?” she said.

She said the GMTF would continue working with professional colleges and training institutions to expand specialist training, particularly in areas with critical shortages.

The objective is to ensure that specialist expertise reaches communities across the country rather than remaining concentrated in a few urban centres.

As the Fund enters its second year, Ms Darko-Opoku said the focus would shift from building systems to strengthening, expanding and deepening their impact.

The GMTF will also continue work on its Medicines List and Tariff Manual to promote transparency, standardisation and accountability in healthcare financing.

She called on specialist doctors, medical directors and other health professionals to play a direct role in shaping the Fund’s future interventions.

“We cannot become comfortable,” she stressed.

The next chapter of the GMTF, she said, “must be even more ambitious than the first.”

For the Fund, the ultimate goal is to build a healthcare system where families do not have to sell their homes, borrow beyond their means or exhaust a lifetime of savings simply because a loved one needs specialised medical care.

Ms Darko-Opoku said the work was far from over, with the second year expected to focus on reaching more patients, strengthening more hospitals and bringing life-saving specialised care closer to communities across Ghana.