Government says the construction of hospitals in some 88 districts across the country will begin in two months.

This is the first time a timeline for the commencement of work on the standard 100-bed facilities which will be in districts without hospitals, has been given.

Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia who announced this said, "the physical infrastructure will be there. By the next two months, if all goes well the 88 hospitals will all start across the country".

Dr. Bawumia added, "we will all physically see them rise by the grace of God before the end of the year we would have made some significant progress at least I'm hoping we can roof all of them."

If successfully executed, that infrastructure according to Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia will be the largest investment in the country's healthcare sector in the last fifty years.

But as important as physical infrastructure is in the scheme of delivering healthcare to the people, it will be meaningless if there are no health professionals to man and deliver services to clients who visit those facilities.

In view of this, the vice president said, the administration in fulfilment of a promise to deliver universal health coverage, will absorb the tuition fees for Postgraduate Medical Doctors.

He said this at the launch of a government scholarship scheme that seeks to absorb fees for Postgraduate Medical Doctors at the Jubilee House Thursday morning.

With 85% of practicing doctors operating in Accra and Kumasi alone, Dr. Bawumia said, there is a need for Ghana to not just train, but retain more doctors in a bid to meet the WHO standard of doctor to patient ratio.