Renowned cardiologist Prof Nicholas Ossei-Gerning OBE has identified cost, lack of equipment and limited specialist support as key factors affecting healthcare delivery in Ghana.

Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Monday, February 23, he said that although every country faces healthcare challenges, Ghana’s situation presents particular concerns, especially in emergency cardiac care.

“I think all healthcare systems around the world, no matter what they are, have issues,” he said.

Drawing a comparison with the United Kingdom, where he practises, Prof Ossei-Gerning explained that emergency treatment for heart attack patients is strictly timed and monitored.

“If I compare, for example, Ghana to the system that I’m used to in the UK, if a patient has a heart attack and you go to any UK hospital, from the time you get your heart attack to the time you get on somebody’s table to open your heart arteries, it’s actually measured,” he said.

When asked what is wrong with healthcare delivery in Ghana, he pointed first to the issue of cost.

“In Ghana, if you have a heart attack and you go to any standard hospital here, some of the questions you’re asked are, ‘Can you pay for it?’ The type of treatment that you have depends on whether you can pay for it or not because there is no national health, so to speak, where everything is taken care of.”

He said access to life-saving procedures often depends on a patient’s ability to afford them.

“Whether you end up on somebody’s table to be operated on depends on how much you can afford. That’s a major issue,” he stressed.

Comparing this to the UK system, he added: “Health in the UK is free at the point of need. Here, it is not free at the point of need. It’s whether you can afford it or not. So that’s an immediate massive issue for, I dare say, the majority of people in Ghana.”

Beyond affordability, Prof Ossei-Gerning highlighted the shortage of equipment as another serious challenge.

“I’ll do various operations here. I’ll ask for the kit, and the kit simply doesn’t exist. Then you have to improvise and make do with what you’ve got. Kit is a major problem,” he said.

He also raised concerns about the level of specialist support available. In the UK, he works with highly trained ancillary staff in specialised units.

“There’s far more expertise in terms of the ancillary staff surrounding me. I’m not saying that the staff here are not trained. They are, but in terms of sub-specialties, it’s really quite different,” he noted.

He added that backup support in the event of complications is not as strong.

“If you have a complication, who you call upon, the backup is also not as good. So one has to make do with what you’ve got,” he explained.

Despite these difficulties, Prof Ossei-Gerning said most of the procedures he has carried out in Ghana have been successful.

“Thankfully, the vast majority of operations that I have done here have been very successful,” he said.

Profile of Professor Nicholas Ossei-Gerning 

Professor Nicholas Ossei-Gerning OBE is a UK-based interventional cardiologist with more than 30 years’ experience in general and interventional cardiology, with specialist expertise in vasculogenic erectile dysfunction.

A consultant at the University Hospital of Wales and Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, he also practises privately at St Joseph’s Hospital in Newport/Cardiff. In Ghana, he played a leading role in establishing the Euracare Advanced Diagnostics and Heart Centre in Accra and remains a visiting professor. He notably travelled from the UK to perform an emergency cardiac intervention at the 37 Military Hospital in 2017.

An alumnus of Mfantsipim School, he trained at University College Hospital, London, earning his MBBS in 1990 and later an MD. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.

In 2024, he was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to interventional cardiology in the UK and Ghana.