By Love Wilhelmina Abanonave
President John Dramani Mahama has assured that his initiative, the Ghana Medical Trust Fund also known as Mahama Cares will break the cycle where many families in the country suffer from financial devastation from diseases which have hit the country including the Covid-19 pandemic.
He made this statement during the World Health Expo Leaders Summit on Tuesday, December 9, 2025 in Accra where he committed that “Ghana is proud to contribute to continental transformation through the Mahama Cares Trust Fund”.
According to the President, Africa must be a participant considering there are advances in biotechnology, digital health, vaccine research and medical manufacturing.
President Mahama acknowledged the challenges the Ghanaian health sector faces stressing that, “our vulnerabilities remain visible. We have iniquities, fragile supply chains, limited manufacturing capacity and insufficient investment in primary health care.
Covid-19 exposed these weaknesses dramatically reminding us that in moments of global pandemics, Africa often is the last to receive support”.
He also added that those experiences taught the country a hard lesson, that no continent is safe until every continent is safe.
Addressing solutions to overcome the challenges of the health sector, he added that the country needed capacity building to manufacture vaccines, medicines, diagnostics and health technologies on African soil.
Strengthening surveillance and early warning systems and emergency preparedness. Investing in Africa’s health workforce the backbone of the systems.
According to him, the Ghana Medical Trust Fund program, the nation’s flagship national mechanism for sustainably financing specialized and high cost medical treatment including cancers, dialysis, advanced surgeries and chronic disease management is one of the many solutions.
He added that he will implement a universal free primary health care program ensuring that cost never prevents any Ghanian from receiving essential healthcare.
This initiative strengthens community health systems, expands digital health services and shifts our health model decisively towards prevention, early detection and community driven care.
The next solution is retooling and modernizing health facilities. “Our ambition requires a strong modern infrastructure base.
We are committed to retooling our health facilities and this includes modern imaging and diagnostic systems, upgraded laboratories, strengthened dialysis services, biomedical engineering reforms and resilient smart supply chains.
These three pillars he said, are not isolated programs. They form the backbone of Ghana’s health transformation agenda and the contribution to the broader African sovereign health ecosystem.
