A former Director of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Dr Elias Sory, is calling on stakeholders in the health delivery system to initiate a critical discussion aimed at improving the sector.

According to him, just like countries across the world– even in advanced countries – the coronavirus pandemic has revealed deep cracks in Ghana’s health system.

“This disease has come to expose the weaknesses in the system and we cannot say we are not in the same boat,” he said on Joy News’ PM Express.

Acknowledging that there have been improvements in Ghana’s health system, Dr Sory said the country still has a lot to do.

“Infrastructure-wise, we wouldn’t say we don’t have a good part of it but there is a lot we still have to do as has been exposed.  We’ve been training personnel for some time now but we still have a lot to do. We’ve been equipping our institutions but we still have a lot to do,” he said.

Dr Sory also backed renewed calls by the Coalition of NGOs in Health for governments to do well to continue and complete projects started under previous administrations.

“From the districts to the national, you go to health centres and you see bungalows that goats and sheep are sleeping in and health workers don’t get the right accommodation to stay in,” he recounted his experience.

“Coronavirus is a big challenge,” he said, adding that, "it is a tiny organism that is going to kill. And it is good we are discussing things now,” he said.

According to him politics has harmed Ghana’s health system “because we tend to look at how we can stay on instead of looking at how people will live and be able to combat diseases that threaten us...”

“And so if today this has come up, I hope we will end up uniting more and identifying we should put in…so that the people in Ghana will have a better way of dealing with any disease that comes,” he said.

The Covid-19 pandemic, Dr Sory notes, should be a good time for a national discourse on Ghana’s health system aimed at improving the sector.