President John Dramani Mahama is leading by example by giving up half of his annual salary to support healthcare in Ghana through the Ghana Medical Trust Fund.

The move aims to bolster medical services and improve access to quality healthcare for patients battling chronic and life-threatening illnesses.

Mr Mahama made the pledge on Wednesday, April 29, as he launched the government's Ghana Medical Trust Fund, also known as Mahama Cares.

Mahama Cares aims to provide dedicated financial support to individuals suffering from chronic and debilitating illnesses. The initiative is designed to ensure fairness in healthcare access, particularly for those facing financial barriers to treatment.

At the event held at the University of Ghana Medical Centre (UGMC) in Accra on Tuesday, April 29, 2025, President Mahama framed the initiative as both a policy priority and a personal mission, recalling how his father succumbed to prostate cancer in 2001 and his mother to hypertension-related complications in 2016.

He also highlighted the plight of a staff member’s child requiring costly weekly dialysis for survival due to chronic kidney disease.

President John Dramani Mahama further underscored the need to support the health sector as he appealed to individuals and private entities to commit their corporate social responsibility to the Mahama Cares initiative.

“I want to encourage corporate Ghana, businesses, the mines, the banks, and all the other companies that the Ghana Medical Trust Fund is coming to your clients who save their money in your banks or do business with you. Some of them are even your own staff.

“So, as part of your Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), if you give anything, consider that you are giving to your own staff or customers. So, I would like to encourage all corporations in Ghana, both private and public, to at the end of the year, donate some portion of their annual CSR to Ghana Medical Fund because it is going to do a lot of good to the country,” he stated.