Mote than 60% of gov’t expenditure in health goes into salaries

Professor Alfred Edwin Yawson, Head, Department of Community Health, University of Ghana Medical School, says more than 60 per cent of government expenditure and resources in the heath sector goes into workers’ salaries and emoluments.

He said only a few of that expenditure went into improving health services and infrastructure.

The Professor said this when he delivered an inaugural lecture at the University of Ghana, Legon.

The lecture was on the topic, “In the Eyes of the Beholder: Dissecting Ghana’s Health System towards 2030 and beyond.”

It highlighted the factors that posed risks to the country’s health care systems focusing on finance, leadership and governance, human resources and service delivery.

Prof. Yawson said though the country was unable to meet the universal target of at least 15 per cent of government expenditure on healthcare, the little that went into the sector should be used to strengthen health services and infrastructure.

He called on the Government to increase its allocation to the sector, especially when donor funding was low post COVID-19.

The Professor entreated the Government to resource community and district-based health centres to bridge the financial and healthcare workers inequality gap between them and national and regional health centres.

“Service delivery at the community and primary care level is fraught with challenges, especially at the sub-district levels, which needs to be addressed to achieve the Universal Health Coverage target,” he stressed.

Prof. Yawson called for investment in the treatment of non-communicable diseases, saying they were on the rise in the country.

“NCDs constitute high morbidity and mortality burdens accounting for six of the ten leading causes of death among adult Ghanaians. We need to invest in their treatment,” he reiterated.

The lecture is the fifth scholarly lecture in the 2021/2022 academic year.
It is a key component of the University’s academic calendar, where every lecturer who reaches professorship shares a research topic with the University community.