Ghana already has experience in implementing the CHPS Zone system in rural communities. What is needed to do now is to replicate the model throughout communities in cities or urban areas. Just like the CHPS zones, the new model can be put up as health outposts. A community of about a thousand inhabitants could have within three centers.
Each health outpost should be equipped with resources necessary to provide basic health needs such as monitoring blood sugar, blood pressure, malaria testing kits, first aid kits, adolescent health, family planning, I.C.T system for documentation, record keeping etc.
The outposts should be linked to I.C.T systems of bigger facilities such as polyclinic, district or metropolitan hospital nearer.
The main goal of the outpost is to establish direct contact with individual community members to help them play active role in accessing primary healthcare.
The health staff in charge should pay regular visit to individual homes and take details of members of families, including their health histories and the data entered into the computer system.
First and foremost, effort should be made to raise national awareness of this initiative and educate the public about this type of healthcare. This can be done through national media and public address systems within the communities.
The people should be educated on the importance of seeking healthcare at the initial stage of health problems and the dangers of delay in doing so. They should also be educated about the fact that one does not necessarily have to be knocked off feet by sickness before visiting health facility.
Community members should be encouraged and empowered to walk to the health outposts any time they feel unwell without hesitation.
Routine basic health screening in communities should be carried out, at least twice a year. This would help track health problems for easy and cheaper treatment.
With active participation of the people, a lot of them would adopt healthy lifestyles that improve and maintain good health.
Free Healthcare at the Primary level
I would advocate that, services provided at the health centers in the communities should be absolutely free. No health insurance should be required to receive care in these facilities. Health insurance and any other cost to clients should only be considered for services beyond the health posts.
The above proposals would cost the nation some considerable amount of resources to implement fully; however, its value cannot be over emphasized in the long term.
In the UK, for example, budgetary allocation for health was 10.2% GDP in 2019. 10.2% of GDP translate into 225.2-billion-pounds. This include both government and non-government spending.
The government is responsible for 79% of the total expenditure. Out of the total budget for healthcare, 9%-10% goes into primary health care programs, including what they call general practice G.P. Proponents of primary healthcare in the U.K. continue to advocate for further increase in budgetary allocation for primary health care (source: office of the national statistics-UK health account).
Ghana, as of 2019 allocated 3.4% of GDP to healthcare delivery. We need to take primary healthcare delivery in this country seriously and this can be demonstrated by how much resources our leaders are willing to commit to its implementation.
