The Central Regional Minister Nana Ato Arthur stressed the need for all Ghanaians to lead healthy life styles to enable the nation to have the desired human resources to meet her development aspirations.
According to him a healthy, strong, intelligent and active human capital would be more productive and create more wealth in helping the nation attain a middle level income status by 2015.
Nana Arthur stated this in a speech read for him at a day’s regional stakeholder’s consultative meeting on the proposed new national health policy on the theme: “Creating Wealth through health”, at Cape Coast.
The meeting, which was to collate views to enhance the policy was attended, among others, by district chief executives and coordinating directors, district directors of health services, district planning officers and media personnel.
The Regional Minister in this regard expressed concern about the current life style of many Ghanaians which he said left “much to be desired” and likely to jeopardize the country’s development agenda.
He mentioned unsanitary conditions, lack of personal hygiene, poor nutrition, excessive intake of alcohol, drug abuse, and lack of regular exercise as some of the factors impeding the health of many Ghanaians.
The Minister expressed further concern that as a result, the government spends more than one trillion cedis a year for the treatment alone of malaria in addition to equally huge amounts spent to treat ailments like diabetes, hypertension, and tuberculosis.
He pointed out that these sums of money being spent on preventable diseases could have been used to accelerate socio-economic development and expressed the hope that participants would make the desired inputs to enhance the objectives of the new policy.
Dr Aaron Offei, Regional Director of health Services, in a welcoming address gave the assurance that the proposed new policy would be
a paradigm shift from curative to preventive healthcare.
He observed that ensuring a healthy living society was not the sole responsibility of the health sector and called for a concerted effort
on the part of all stakeholders.
Mr. Isaac Adams, Director of Research, Statistics and Information Management at the Ministry of Health said all Ministries, Departments and Agencies have a role to play in the successful implementation of the policy when it comes into being.
He called for the strict enforcement of bye-laws on sanitation to facilitate clean and healthy surroundings.